Globe Brand Guidelines: The Dayton Slicer and Mixer Maker Owned by Middleby

A slicer company and a Dayton founding.

Globe Food Equipment Company makes slicers, mixers and other food-preparation equipment and is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. It traces its story to 1921 and the Globe Slicing Machine Company, which, the company says, went on “to invent and patent the gravity-feed slicer, revolutionizing the slicing industry.” A gravity-feed slicer sets the blade and carriage at an angle so that the product’s own weight carries it through the cut; in January 2023 Foodservice Equipment Reports wrote that this is the most common type in chain restaurants, according to several manufacturers. The invention claim is Globe’s own.

The present company is younger. “Seventy years later in Dayton, Ohio, the birthplace of innovation,” its website says, “Globe Food Equipment was founded from that same spirit” — which places its founding at around 1991. Its owner, the Middleby Corporation, says Globe began “as a slicer manufacturer over 30 years ago.” Globe’s press releases still open their history with the words “Since 1921.”

Its leadership has been long-serving. A January 2019 release said that Hilton Garner, then president, had spent 27 years at Globe, and quoted Middleby’s chief executive crediting him with growing the company “from a few slicer models” into a global brand; Garner was quoted as saying Globe marketed more than 100 products. Kevin Woods, who joined Globe in 2012 as vice president of sales and marketing, was named president from April 2019, the release said.

Slicers, mixers and scales.

Globe describes its range as “best-in-class slicers, mixers and scales and a competitive array of distinctive food service equipment” — the first phrase is its own. In January 2020 Foodservice Equipment Reports described the “Dayton, Ohio equipment maker” as making mixers and slicers, along with meat choppers, weighing systems, and gas and electric cooking equipment.

Slicers remain at the centre. In February 2017 Globe launched its S-Series premium heavy-duty slicers, aimed, it said, at supermarket delis, correctional kitchens and slicing frozen meat, with an open, one-piece anodised aluminium base and what it called a “Clear Text” on-screen interface in place of error codes. The same release described an extended carriage and a large platter for big products such as prosciutto, mortadella and bacon, and a two-year parts and labour warranty. In May 2021 Foodservice Equipment Reports featured the GSO12, a medium-duty open-body manual slicer whose open design gives staff room to build sandwiches on the machine. In May 2026 Globe introduced a redesigned S-Series, models S213, S213A, SG213 and SG213A, with a patented removable meat grip and a lock-and-slide modular carriage, the company says; the same release mentions recent additions including a sous vide immersion circulator and a cheese shredder.

The range has also moved into cooking. In March 2017, at the NAFEM Show, Globe added the GSP18G stock-pot range to its gas cooking line, and in August 2017 it expanded its electric sandwich grills with the GPGS1410, a combination unit with a grooved cast-iron top plate and a smooth bottom plate. The company’s 2017 releases also said Globe had twice been named an Exceptional Manufacturer by FEDA, a foodservice equipment distributors’ association.

The professional food-prep trade.

Makers of commercial food-preparation equipment sell to a practical audience: chefs, bar owners, butchers, bakers and the dealers who fit out their kitchens. Their brands are built less on advertising than on catalogues, spec sheets and demonstrations, and the machines themselves, slicers, mixers, stick blenders, juicers and vegetable cutters, do most of the talking.

The imagery of the category is consistent. Machines are shown as cut-outs on white for the catalogue, or set on stainless-steel counters in a working prep kitchen, often with a chef’s hands at the controls. Close-ups of blades, discs, bowls and whisks stand in for the engineering inside, and a colour on a base or a housing can become part of a machine’s identity.

Trade fairs carry much of the brand work. Host in Milan, Internorga in Hamburg and the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago are among the shows where makers set up working stands, run live demonstrations and launch new models to importers and dealers; Dynamic says it launched its combined vegetable slicer at Host, and Santos says it chose a limited colour for its #11 juicer after a visitor vote there in 2019.

Some of these makers are independent companies and some sit within larger industrial groups, and several make the place where their machines are built part of their identity. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand, who founded it, who owns it and what it says about where its products are made, and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A proud Middleby company.

Globe was independent into the late 2010s. Its press releases of 2017 described it as “a privately-held business”; by January 2019 the company’s own release called it “a wholly owned subsidiary of The Middleby Corporation,” the foodservice-equipment group based in Elgin, Illinois, and spoke of “a smooth transition to a Middleby company.” Foodservice Equipment Reports described Globe as a Middleby subsidiary in January 2020 and again in January 2022. Its website footer now reads “A proud Middleby Company,” and Middleby lists Globe among its foodservice brands.

The company sets out its aims plainly. Its mission is “to be well-respected in the commercial food equipment industry by creating an exceptional experience while delivering quality, performance and value,” and its vision is “to be the commercial food preparation equipment market leader.” Its core beliefs read like slogans — “We are Globe,” “We Win as a Team” and, with a pun on shipping, “We Get Ship Done.” It closes its company page with a line about the name itself: “Globe is more than a brand name, it’s a promise of consistently delivered excellence.”

Its company page speaks in practical terms about testing new designs and materials, improving warranties, reducing the cost of service and delivering on time. Its products are sold through dealers and sales representatives across the United States and Canada, according to its website, which lists regional sales managers and a representative locator for both countries. Between 2019 and 2020 the company also published ORBIT, a quarterly newsletter, according to its news page.

For a design guide, Globe shows how a specialist slicer maker can keep a 1921 story at the heart of its brand inside a larger group. Compare Berkel, another slicer name with a long history, and Edlund, whose electric slicer appeared beside Globe’s GSO12 in the same 2021 trade feature. For this guide we use a deep blue and a brass with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Globe’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.