JBT Marel Brand Guidelines: A Spray Pump, an Icelandic Scale & One Company

An orchard pump in California and a university project in Iceland.

JBT Marel is one company with two starting points. It took its present form on 2 January 2025, when JBT Corporation of Chicago completed its takeover of the Icelandic group Marel and changed its corporate name and ticker. Zacks reported in December 2024 that the offer had expired on 20 December with 97.5% of Marel’s shareholders accepting, more than a year after the first approach in November 2023, and that the shares would trade on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Iceland from 3 January. The ticker is JBTM.

The older root is American. English Wikipedia says the orchardist John Bean founded the Bean Spray Pump Company at Los Gatos, California, in 1884; the company says he developed a continuous spray pump to combat scale in his almond orchards. In 1928 the firm bought Anderson-Barngrover and Sprague-Sells and became Food Machinery Corporation, later Food Machinery and Chemical and, from 1961, FMC Corporation. On 30 April 2008 FMC Technologies announced the spin-off of its airport and food equipment businesses as John Bean Technologies Corporation, based in Chicago and named after the pump’s inventor. Bean Avenue in Los Gatos carries the same name.

The younger root is Icelandic. Marel grew from a project at the University of Iceland: English and Icelandic Wikipedia date it to 1977, and the company to 1978. The firm was founded in 1983; Wikipedia names Rögnvaldur Ólafsson and Þórður Vigfússon as its founders. The BBC reported in 2017 that the name combines “marine” and “electronic,” and that the aim was to mechanise fish processing for a country where fishing was central to the economy. The company credits its first mark to motion-compensating scales for use at sea.

Buying, integrating and keeping the names.

Both sides grew by acquisition, and the present company’s range is built from those purchases. The BBC reported in 2017 that Marel, with a small home market, was selling to Canada within two years of its founding and to the USSR a year after that. It listed on the Icelandic stock exchange in 1992. Wikipedia’s dates include Carnitech of Denmark in 1997, AEW Delford of the UK and Scanvaegt of Denmark in 2006, and Stork Food Systems of the Netherlands, with Townsend, in 2008. MPS of the Netherlands was agreed in 2015, Sulmaq of Brazil followed in 2017, MAJA of Germany in 2018, and Wenger of the United States in 2022. Marel added a second listing on Euronext Amsterdam in 2019.

Fleischwirtschaft reported on 4 September 2020 that Marel had agreed to buy the whole of TREIF, the portioning, dicing and slicing specialist of Oberlahr in Germany. Oberlahr now appears among JBT Marel’s Customer Technology Centers.

JBT’s own list runs from A&B Process Systems in 2015 through Avure Technologies and PLF International in 2017, Schröder in 2018, Proseal in 2019, and Urtasun, alco and Bevcorp in the following years, according to Wikipedia. It left airport equipment in 2023, when AeroTech went to Oshkosh Corporation.

The signature products reflect that spread. The clearest Marel example is FleXicut, which the BBC described in 2017 as a computerised machine using x-rays, water jets and spinning blades to portion fish fillets; JBT Marel’s site still sells it as a pinbone removal and portioning system with its own software. The company’s home page sorts its work by food rather than by machine: poultry, meat, fish and seafood, prepared foods, ready meals, beverages and juices. It describes its offer as equipment, software and service, ranging from standalone machines to full lines.

Stainless, belts and trade fairs.

Makers of food processing machinery tend to show the work itself. Stainless lines are photographed under cool light, fillets move along white belts, sausage ropes curve out of a filler, slicers fan portions onto a conveyor, and fryers and seasoning drums turn snacks in close-up. The BBC opened a 2017 report on Marel in just that way, with cod on a conveyor and a machine cutting each fillet into portions.

Steel carries much of the imagery. Wash-down surfaces, welded seams and the curve of a hopper recur in close-up, and the machines are shown at close range.

Test kitchens and technology centres are the sector’s showrooms. JBT Marel lists Customer Technology Centers on several continents where customers can run their own product through the equipment, and Handtmann describes its Forum in Biberach as a technology and customer centre. Websites often follow the customer’s food rather than the machine: JBT Marel sorts its site by poultry, meat, seafood, prepared foods and beverages, and Handtmann’s regional sites by meat and sausage, baked goods, pet food and dairy.

The trade fairs set the calendar. IFFA in Frankfurt, SÜDPACK in Friedrichshafen, Anuga FoodTec in Cologne, Seafood Processing Global in Barcelona and PACK EXPO in the United States are regular venues for the sector, alongside bakery and ingredient shows: vegconomist reported that Handtmann took new bakery processes to iba in 2025, and JBT Marel’s news page reported on CibusTec in 2026. This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker: who founded it, who owns it, and where its machines are made, marking clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

“Though our name is not on the packaging.”

The name itself is the main brand decision. The deal terms kept both words, and the company’s 2024 annual report lists a corporate headquarters in Chicago and a European headquarters in Garðabær, the town near Reykjavík that had been Marel’s home. WeAreAquaculture reported when the transaction agreement was signed in 2024 that JBT’s Brian Deck would sit on the new board and that Marel’s Árni Sigurðsson would become president of the combined company. The company’s site presents the merger as “two proud legacies.”

Marel had been through this kind of naming work before. In March 2007 it launched the corporate identity Marel Food Systems as a single sales and service front for AEW Delford, Carnitech, Marel and Scanvaegt; Meatingplace reported that the identity was developed by the London brand group Loewy and the Icelandic agency Hvita Husid. Fleischwirtschaft reported then that the four brand names would continue to be marketed. On 1 January 2010, Wikipedia says, the name became Marel hf. after Stork Food Systems had been integrated. The BBC quoted the chief executive in 2017 saying that bought firms should be integrated as soon as possible.

JBT Marel treats its older names as heritage. Its “proud legacy of trusted brands” lists more than 40, among them Frigoscandia, Stein, Townsend and TIPPER TIE, and it says these “live on within JBT Marel’s product lines.” Its purpose line is “Transform the future of food,” which follows JBT’s “fortify the future of food” and Marel’s mission to “transform the way food is processed.” One of its stated values reads: “Though our name is not on the packaging, it stands behind every product we touch.”

On manufacturing, the company says it has sales, service, manufacturing and sourcing operations in more than 30 countries, so no single place of origin applies. A BBC caption in 2017 said Marel’s equipment was made in Iceland and exported. Wikipedia says MPS had production sites in the Netherlands and China when it was bought. The company also runs Customer Technology Centers, listed on its site in places including Boxmeer, Bad Iburg, Oberlahr, Sandusky and Campinas, where customers can run their own product through the machines.

For a design guide, JBT Marel shows how a merged company can carry two histories in one name while keeping dozens of older marks as product heritage. Compare TREIF, one of the names it absorbed, and GEA Group, another maker of food processing equipment. For this guide we use a North Atlantic blue and brushed steel with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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