Food production has always been high stakes. If a piece of gear fails, it can mess up everything… spoiling batches, wasting ingredients, and even putting public health at risk.
That’s why this food processing equipment is more than just machines; it’s key for keeping things safe and consistent.
For over 75 years, Schmidt Industrial Services has been in the mix. We’ve gone from fabricating heavy-gauge tanks and pressure vessels to building sanitary chocolate tanks and mixing vessels through our McCarter division.
Every new standard, every industry shift, we’ve not only seen it, we’ve adapted alongside it.
This guide is all our knowledge put together. We’ll help you learn about the different types of food processing, what makes them last and safe, and who depends on them. While regulations are important, we’ll also touch on how the right gear makes things smoother, cuts back on downtime, increases profit, and creates a safer food that people trust.
Here’s what you’ll find inside:
- A clear breakdown of equipment types, from mixers to storage tanks to specialty systems, and where each fits in your production line.
- Material selection insights so you can choose options that balance durability, sanitation, and cost.
- Industry-specific considerations for everything from confectionery to dairy to ready-to-eat foods.
- Key compliance factors to keep your facility inspection-ready and running efficiently.
- Pro tips from the field on avoiding costly downtime and planning smarter upgrades
The Foundations of Food Processing Equipment
At its core, food processing equipment refers to any machine, vessel, or system used to transform food products from raw materials into safe, consumable, and packaged items. That definition spans everything from stainless steel mixing vessels to heat exchangers, conveyors, and fully automated packaging lines.
But the definition doesn’t stop at functionality. True food processing equipment must also:
- Meet regulatory compliance requirements for food-contact surfaces.
- Support sanitary design to ensure equipment can be cleaned effectively (no cracks, crevices, or rough welds where bacteria can grow).
- Stand up to high-throughput, industrial-scale operations.
- Withstand aggressive cleaning processes like CIP (Clean-in-Place) and SIP (Sterilize-in-Place).
Why Regulatory Compliance is Non-Negotiable
Regulatory compliance in food processing isn’t an afterthought; it’s central to protecting consumers, ensuring operational safety, and managing risk. Compliance is also the biggest differentiator between reliable food processing partners and vendors who cut corners.
- FDA compliance: Equipment must meet U.S. legal obligations on materials, finishes, and sanitary design.
- ASME certified vessels: For tanks and pressure equipment, compliance frameworks like the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code enforce strict fabrication rules.
- NBIC R-Stamp: Required for safe repair and alterations of pressure-retaining items.
- Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA): Ensuring safe conditions for workers.
Why is this important? Not following the rules can mean fines, lawsuits, recalls, and a bad name for your brand.
Types of Food Processing Equipment
Food processing is a broad field, but most equipment falls into a few critical categories. Each has its own engineering challenges, compliance requirements, and opportunities for innovation. Below, we’re breaking down the main types of food processing equipment with insider insights that only come from decades of hands-on experience.
1. Storage & Holding Equipment
From chocolate tanks to bulk storage vessels and sanitary holding tanks, storage systems are the unsung heroes of food production. They ensure that raw ingredients and finished products remain safe, stable, and ready for the next stage of processing.
- Materials: Built from food-grade stainless steel (304 or 316), depending on the corrosiveness of the product.
- Design Features: Thermal jackets for temperature control, agitation systems for product consistency, and insulation to protect against external heat fluctuations.
- Sanitary Design: Welds and finishes must meet FDA and USDA standards to prevent bacterial growth.
A weak regulatory compliance plan around storage tanks can lead to hidden contamination risks, inconsistent product quality, and even product recalls. The McCarter Division of Schmidt has decades of expertise in designing storage tanks specifically for confectionery and chocolate producers.
Explore McCarter Confectionery Equipment
2. Mixing & Blending Equipment
Mixers and blenders are where recipes become reality. From batch mixers to continuous blending systems, this category of food processing equipment ensures ingredients are combined to exact specifications.
- Precision Matters: Surface finishes must be Ra < 0.8 µm for food contact, with polished welds to ensure cleanability.
- Compliance Requirements: Weld quality and sanitary design are not negotiable. This is because improper finishes can trap residues, leading to microbial growth.
- Customization: Facilities often require custom components such as mixer shafts, blades, and agitators designed to handle specific viscosities or ingredients.
Poor mixing doesn’t just hurt product quality; it can lead to failed audits if residues build up in hard-to-clean crevices.
That’s why our precision machining division, Wagner Machine, produces custom shafts and agitators to meet tight tolerances, extending both performance and compliance.
3. Heating & Cooling Systems
Thermal control is the backbone of food safety. Whether it’s pasteurizing milk, cooling syrups, or maintaining precise chocolate tempering, heating and cooling equipment ensures that food products are safe, stable, and consistent.
- Equipment Examples: Heat exchangers, pasteurizers, sterilizers, and cooling tanks.
- Compliance Processes: Must meet FDA and USDA regulations for thermal treatment, with validated temperature monitoring and cleaning protocols.
- Common Failures: Plate degradation, gasket leaks, and corrosion are common in older systems.
Heat exchangers are one of the most common failure points in food plants. Schmidt often provides reverse engineering services for legacy exchangers, fabricating modernized replacement parts that extend asset life without forcing expensive full replacements.
Explore our Fabrication Capabilities
4. Separation & Filtration Equipment
Separators and filters remove impurities, separate components, and create consistency in food products. From dairy centrifuges to membrane systems in beverage production, these tools keep products safe and standardized.
- Equipment Types: Centrifuges, filters, sieves, and membrane systems.
- Regulatory Compliance Management: Facilities must document filter validation and replacement schedules for FDA and third-party audits.
- Durability: Coatings and corrosion protection are critical for equipment exposed to high moisture, chemicals, or acids.
Filters that aren’t validated or documented can fail inspections, even if they’re technically functional. Our industrial coatings division, Engineered Resin Solutions (ERS), specializes in corrosion protection, extending the life of separation equipment while maintaining audit-ready compliance.
Explore Engineered Resin Solutions
5. Conveying & Material Handling Systems
Getting raw ingredients and finished products safely from one process to another is often underestimated, until it causes a bottleneck. That’s why conveying systems are vital for efficiency and safety.
- Equipment Types: Screw conveyors, bucket elevators, pneumatic conveying systems.
- Design Risks: Poor sanitary design can trap food residues, creating contamination hazards and failing audits.
- Customization Needs: Facilities often require custom fabrication for conveyors that integrate seamlessly into their plant layout.
Conveyors are among the top sources of cross-contamination when sanitary design isn’t prioritized. Schmidt fabricates custom solutions that eliminate residue traps and improve cleanability, reducing downtime and compliance risk.
Explore our Fabrication Capabilities
6. Packaging Equipment
Packaging is the final step between production and the consumer, and it’s increasingly where innovation happens. Modern food processing equipment integrates packaging with IoT sensors and automation to meet growing demands for efficiency, traceability, and safety.
- Equipment Types: Fillers, cappers, sealers, palletizers, and labeling systems.
- Compliance Focuses: Sanitary surfaces, allergen control, and packaging integrity.
- Technology Shift: IoT-enabled packaging systems now collect data on throughput, sanitation, and traceability.
The integration of IoT into packaging creates new compliance challenges. Compliance monitoring now includes both physical standards and data security obligations. That being said, facilities must be ready to prove not only that their packaging is safe, but that their data systems comply with modern privacy regulations.
Materials in Food Processing Equipment
How good, safe, and up to standard the food gear is depends a lot on what it’s made of. It’s not just about lasting; it’s about following rules, food safety, and getting your money’s worth. Here’s the most used stuff in the business, their good and bad, and why each decision is key.
304 Stainless Steel:
- Widely used and cost-effective.
- Works well in environments with low exposure to chlorides or acids.
- Commonly used for dry food processing or general holding tanks.
316 Stainless Steel:
- Contains molybdenum for superior corrosion resistance.
- Essential in chloride-rich environments (dairy brines, tomato sauces, seafood processing).
- Higher upfront cost, but far lower lifecycle cost due to reduced corrosion and longer service life.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Many suppliers default to 304 to cut costs. Schmidt advises clients through risk assessments to determine where 316 is required. Using 304 where 316 is needed can cut equipment life in half, leading to premature failures and costly downtime.
Nickel Alloys for Hard Situations
Some processes happen under high heat, high acidity, or corrosive cleaning cycles. That’s where nickel comes in.
- Applications: Thermal processing, high-temperature ovens, fermentation systems, and environments with extreme chemical exposure.
- Benefits: Resistance to oxidation, scaling, and stress cracking where stainless steel might fail.
- Trade-offs: Higher cost and more complex fabrication requirements, but they provide unmatched longevity in punishing environments.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Nickel alloys are overkill for most applications, but in industries like chemical processing or high-salt food production, they can be the difference between 2 years of service and 20. Our fabrication division has experience shaping heavy-gauge metals, including nickel alloys, into tanks, vessels, and piping.
Industrial Coatings: The Hidden Shield
Even the best stainless steel benefits from protective coatings. Schmidt’s Industrial Coatings Division (ERS) specializes in applying FDA-approved linings and finishes that extend the life of food equipment.
- Epoxy Linings: Protect against chemical attack, particularly in acidic food environments.
- Non-Stick Coatings: Reduce residue buildup, making cleaning cycles shorter and more effective.
- FDA-Approved Finishes: Ensure materials meet regulatory standards for direct food contact.
- Corrosion Control: Essential in wet environments or systems exposed to aggressive cleaning agents.
Coatings are often seen as optional, but in reality, they can double equipment lifespan while reducing cleaning time. That translates directly into reduced downtime and cost savings for facilities.
Clean Design: Not Just Material
It’s not enough to pick the right metal…it has to be made correctly. A clean design means that food processing equipment is getting cleaned and maintained effectively.
- Weld Polishing: All welds should be ground smooth and polished to avoid bacteria-harboring crevices.
- Crevice-Free Joints: Proper design eliminates gaps where food residues can accumulate.
- Drainability: Tanks and piping should be designed for complete drainage to avoid stagnant liquid.
Many failures in food equipment aren’t due to the wrong material; they’re due to poor sanitary design. Schmidt’s ASME-certified fabrication and in-house quality control ensure every piece meets both regulatory and operational standards.
Surface Testing (Ra)
Regulators don’t just look at what material you use; they test the surface roughness (Ra) of welds and finishes to confirm cleanability.
- Typical Standard: Ra < 0.8 µm for food-contact surfaces.
- Why It Matters: Smooth surfaces prevent microbial growth and ensure effective sanitation.
- Compliance Frameworks: FDA, USDA, and 3-A Sanitary Standards require documented surface finishes for audit approval.
Some vendors skip Ra testing altogether, leaving clients vulnerable to failed audits. Schmidt includes surface finish documentation as part of our compliance processes, protecting clients against unexpected regulatory findings.
Learn more about us and everything we do to ensure our clients are getting nothing but the highest quality.
Materials as a Compliance Strategy
The choice of material is about more than corrosion resistance or durability; it’s about compliance risk management. The truth is, regulatory auditors don’t care that stainless steel is shiny; they care that it meets documented standards, is traceable, and can be cleaned consistently.
Schmidt helps clients make the right call through:
- Lifecycle Cost Analysis: Balancing upfront costs with long-term savings.
- Compliance Monitoring: Providing documentation of surface finishes, weld certifications, and coatings.
- Cross-Industry Knowledge: Understanding that requirements for dairy differ from those in confectionery, chemical, or beverage facilities.
Why Schmidt is the Right Partner for Material Selection
For 75+ years, Schmidt has fabricated equipment using a wide range of heavy-gauge metals, alloys, and coatings. We don’t just build to spec; we advise clients on the materials that make the most sense for their industry, product, and compliance needs.
From decisions on 304 vs 316 stainless steel to advanced nickel alloy fabrication and FDA-approved industrial coatings, Schmidt provides solutions that protect facilities from premature failures, costly downtime, and regulatory violations.
Regulations & Compliance Professionals Care About
When we talk about food processing equipment, it’s not just about steel, welds, and motors; it’s about regulatory compliance requirements.
Put it this way, compliance is the real product…
A tank that fails FDA inspection is useless, no matter how well it’s built.
FDA Compliance in Food Processing Equipment
The FDA enforces rules on:
- Food-contact surfaces: must be smooth, corrosion-resistant, and non-toxic.
- Sanitary design: no cracks, pits, or hard-to-clean crevices.
- Maintenance records: demonstrating cleaning, inspections, and preventive care.
Manufacturers must ensure compliance not just at installation, but throughout the lifecycle of the equipment. A strong regulatory compliance plan includes cleaning validation, operator training, and documented compliance processes for audits.
ASME Certified Pressure Vessels
Many food processing equipment systems rely on pressure, whether it’s in a sterilization chamber or a pasteurizer. That’s where ASME-certified standards apply. An ASME U-Stamp guarantees that a pressure vessel has been fabricated under strict rules, inspection procedures, and safety controls.
NBIC R-Stamp for Repairs
When equipment fails, you can’t just weld it back together and hope for the best. Repairs on pressure-retaining equipment must be done under the NBIC R-Stamp, which authorizes companies like Schmidt to make alterations safely and legally. This ensures your facility won’t face violations for non-compliance during inspections.
Global Regulatory Environment
In an increasingly global industry, international standards are critical:
- European Union: harmonized food-contact material regulations.
- European Commission: enforcing regulations across member states.
- 3-A Sanitary Standards: covering equipment in the dairy and food sectors.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): surprisingly relevant, since modern equipment often collects data for compliance monitoring.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Many facilities overlook the need to comply with data security laws when installing IoT-enabled equipment. If equipment monitors temperature, batch size, or even customer data for traceability, compliance software must also meet privacy and consumer protection standards.
Industries That Rely on Food Processing Equipment
Confectionery
Few industries are as detail-driven as confectionery. Why?
A fraction of a degree in temperature or a change in mixing speed can alter the taste and texture of chocolate, candy, or coatings. That’s why equipment like chocolate tanks, mixing vessels, and storage systems must deliver absolute consistency, batch after batch.
Schmidt’s McCarter division has specialized in this space for decades, helping confectionery producers balance efficiency with artistry. From designing sanitary food-grade stainless steel systems to ensuring every piece meets FDA compliance standards, McCarter has become a trusted partner to confectionery plants worldwide.
Beverages
Beverage production is as much science as it is craft.
Breweries, distilleries, and bottling plants all rely on specialized food processing equipment like sanitary tanks, fermenters, bright beer tanks, and carbonation systems. A slight deviation in cleanliness, pressure, or temperature can affect entire runs, which means equipment must be designed for durability, easy cleaning, and precise control.
In addition to FDA regulations, beverage facilities must also meet strict regulatory compliance requirements that cover everything from packaging to traceability. Schmidt’s tanks and systems are built to deliver sanitary design while meeting the demanding production speeds of modern beverage plants.
The result? Consistency in flavor, safety for consumers, and efficiency that protects the bottom line.
Dairy
Dairy equipment is subject to some of the most rigorous standards of all food processing industries.
Pasteurizers, separators, evaporators, and cooling tanks must withstand constant sterilization and cleaning cycles without losing performance. This is where 3-A Sanitary Standards come into play; ensuring every weld, surface, and joint resists contamination and holds up under pressure.
Equipment here doesn’t just need to perform; it must endure aggressive cleaning chemicals and strict inspection protocols on a near-daily basis. Schmidt’s history with heavy-gauge stainless steel fabrication makes us uniquely capable of building equipment that meets these extreme demands while delivering consistent, safe dairy products.
Meat & Poultry
Meat and poultry processing is an industry with a lot of moving parts.
Conveyor belts, cutting systems, grinders, and chilling tanks must operate efficiently while also meeting strict occupational health and food safety regulations. Workers’ safety is just as important as preventing contamination of the product, and that means equipment has to be designed with sanitation and ergonomics in mind. Stainless steel fabrication is critical here. Every surface must be smooth and resistant to bacterial growth.
Schmidt’s experience in regulatory compliance management ensures our fabricated equipment aligns with USDA inspection protocols, helping facilities avoid the risks and costs of downtime or recalls.
Industrial Baking
From artisan bakeries to large-scale production plants, industrial baking depends on mixers, ovens, proofers, conveyors, and automated lines.
Unlike some other sectors, baking often requires high-heat, high-volume environments, making durability and safety administration protocols especially critical. This means that equipment must not only comply with FDA and OSHA requirements, but also be designed to integrate fire safety measures and withstand high temperatures.
Schmidt fabricates custom stainless steel components, structural supports, and tanks that help industrial bakeries scale without sacrificing consistency or safety.
Beyond Food
While this guide focuses on food processing equipment, many of the same principles apply to other industries where safety, compliance, and precision are mission-critical.
- Pharmaceuticals: Sterile design, traceability, and compliance with FDA and international regulations.
- Medical Devices: Fabrication of components that demand extreme precision and strict sanitation.
- Defense & Energy: Heavy-gauge vessels, piping, and structural components built under ASME-certified standards.
In each of these industries, equipment failure isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a risk to public health, safety, and trust…
That’s why Schmidt’s combination of fabrication expertise, reverse engineering, and compliance-focused design makes us more than a fabricator. We’re a solutions partner for organizations that cannot afford downtime.
And that brings us to our next section…
Challenges in Food Processing Equipment
Downtime & Costs
In food production, downtime isn’t just inconvenient… It’s catastrophic.
A halted line means lost batches, wasted ingredients, idle labor, and delayed orders. For industries like dairy or confectionery, even a few hours of downtime can cost tens of thousands in revenue.
On top of that, restarting equipment isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Lines must be cleaned, sanitized, and tested before production resumes, adding more hidden costs and lost productivity. This is why forward-thinking facilities rely on proactive maintenance schedules, documented inspections, and rapid-response repair teams.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Many plants underestimate the cost of downtime by only looking at output loss. True downtime cost also includes labor, cleaning, wasted raw materials, and the hit to customer trust when orders are late.
Legacy Equipment & Reverse Engineering
Here’s the truth about some of today’s food infrastructure: It runs on equipment designed decades ago.
While rugged, legacy equipment presents a challenge: parts wear out, but OEM support is often unavailable. This creates operational bottlenecks and compliance headaches when an old part no longer meets current regulatory compliance requirements.
This is why it’s important to work with equipment partners that specialize in reverse engineering, taking aging, unsupported components and reproducing them with modern precision machining and coatings. This not only keeps equipment operational, but often improves performance by incorporating stronger alloys, sanitary finishes, or corrosion-resistant linings.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: In many cases, reverse-engineered parts outperform the originals because modern fabrication techniques allow for tighter tolerances and better hygienic design. That means extending the life of equipment and reducing long-term compliance risk.
Explore our Engineering Capabilities
Scaling Production
Growth is every manufacturer’s goal, but scaling production brings complex challenges.
Should a facility retrofit existing equipment, or invest in new assets? Retrofitting may seem cost-effective, but old equipment often struggles to meet the sanitation and throughput demands of modern food safety standards.
This decision is not just financial, it’s strategic. Choosing incorrectly can leave a business stuck with costly retrofits that still don’t meet compliance. That being said, always choose an equipment partner that works with plant managers to perform risk assessments, advising on when reverse engineering makes sense versus when new fabrication is required.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Expansion plans often fail because plants underestimate the supporting infrastructure needed, like additional storage tanks, piping, or coatings for corrosion control. Schmidt’s full-service divisions anticipate these requirements, avoiding costly surprises mid-project.
Compliance Risk & Non-Compliance
The most dangerous challenge isn’t mechanical; it’s invisible.
Compliance risk is what keeps plant engineers and managers up at night. A single overlooked record, missed inspection, or undocumented cleaning cycle can trigger violations.
Non-compliance has a direct cost: fines, recalls, and even forced shutdowns. But it also has a long tail…
Recalls erode consumer trust, weaken brand reputation, and create ripple effects across the supply chain. Unlike a broken pump or cracked tank, compliance failures are harder to predict; they’re rooted in paperwork, documentation, and incomplete compliance processes.
Schmidt helps facilities avoid this by embedding compliance into the equipment itself:
- ASME-certified fabrication ensures pressure vessels and tanks meet legal standards.
- NBIC R-Stamp repair authority allows Schmidt to legally alter or repair critical equipment.
- Sanitary design and FDA-approved coatings minimize risks of contamination.
- Reverse engineering ensures legacy parts are brought up to modern compliance levels.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: The difference between passing and failing an audit often comes down to how well a facility can prove its equipment history. Schmidt provides traceable documentation on every fabrication, repair, and part replacement, a compliance shield that most fabricators can’t match.
What Most Equipment Partners Won’t Tell You…
Most guides will tell you about tanks, vessels, and mixers. What they won’t tell you is how equipment actually fails in the real world, and why so many plants run into costly downtime, recalls, or compliance violations.
With 75+ years in the industry, Schmidt has seen these pitfalls firsthand and, more importantly, helped clients avoid them.
Unmaintained Heat Exchangers Are a Silent Risk
Heat exchangers are essential in dairy, beverage, and confectionery operations, but they’re also one of the most overlooked failure points.
When seals degrade or plates corrode, contamination can enter the process flow without immediate detection. The result? Entire product batches can be compromised, leading to recalls and lost consumer trust.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Many facilities only replace heat exchangers when they fail visibly. But by then, the damage (both financial and reputational) is already done. Schmidt uses reverse engineering to keep legacy exchangers operational while upgrading them to modern sanitary standards. That means new parts fabricated to precise tolerances, resistant to corrosion, and documented for inspection.
Lack of Documentation Says a Lot
When regulators walk into a facility, they don’t just look at your tanks and pipes.
They’ll ask for records: welding certifications, inspection logs, cleaning cycles, and repair histories. And here’s the thing, compliance data often carries as much weight as the physical equipment itself.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Facilities with poor compliance monitoring face steeper fines and stricter penalties, even if their equipment is technically sound. Schmidt arms clients with complete documentation packages (from ASME U-Stamp certifications to NBIC R-Stamp repair records), making inspections smoother and protecting plants from charges of non-compliance.
The Wrong Choice of Steel Grades Can Cost You
Not all stainless steels are created equal. In food processing, the difference between using 304 and 316 stainless steel can be the difference between 5 years of reliable service and premature corrosion failures.
- 304 Stainless Steel: Adequate for many dry or less corrosive environments.
- 316 Stainless Steel: Required for high-moisture, acidic, or chloride-rich processes (e.g., tomato processing, dairy brine systems).
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Some suppliers default to cheaper 304 to lower upfront costs, but this can slash equipment lifespan and lead to unexpected failures.
We advise clients through thorough risk assessments and lifecycle cost analysis, ensuring facilities invest in the right material from the start. It’s about more than initial savings; it’s about saving money long term and avoiding mid-production breakdowns.
Surface Finish Is the Hidden Compliance Trigger
To the naked eye, stainless steel looks smooth. But regulators measure surface roughness (Ra) with micrometer precision. If welds and finishes are too rough, bacteria can grow in microscopic crevices — even when equipment looks clean.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Many suppliers won’t tell you the Ra rating of your surfaces, leaving you exposed to failed audits. Schmidt fabricates equipment to meet food-contact standards (Ra ≤ 0.8 µm) and documents it, ensuring your equipment passes the most stringent inspections.
Retrofitting Can Cost More Than Rebuilding
When scaling production, retrofitting older equipment seems like a money saver. In reality, it often introduces compliance risks and hidden inefficiencies. Old tanks may not meet modern regulatory compliance requirements, and modified equipment without documentation can fail inspections.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Retrofitting can be a false economy. We know this because every day we help clients decide when reverse engineering makes sense and when new custom fabrication is the smarter long-term investment.
The True Cost of Downtime Is Underestimated
Plants often calculate downtime based on output losses alone. But the real costs include:
- Wasted raw materials.
- Full cleaning and sterilization cycles before restart.
- Over time labor to catch up.
- Strain on downstream logistics and supply contracts.
- Lost trust from customers when delivery schedules slip.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: The most expensive downtime isn’t just the shift you lost, it’s the ripple effect across the business. That’s why Schmidt invests in emergency turnaround services and rapid-response fabrication to help clients stop the clock.
Compliance is a Design Problem
Many vendors treat compliance as paperwork at the end of a project. In reality, regulatory compliance starts at the design stage. If surfaces aren’t smooth enough, welds aren’t certified, or coatings aren’t FDA-approved, no amount of documentation can save you.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Compliance is engineered into equipment from day one. Schmidt doesn’t just fabricate to spec; we fabricate to regulatory frameworks, so clients can face audits with confidence.
How to Choose the Right Equipment Partner
Selecting a partner for your food processing equipment isn’t just a purchasing decision; it’s a long-term investment in safety, uptime, and profitability. The right partner doesn’t just build to spec; they anticipate regulatory changes, provide documentation, and stand behind their work for decades.
Key Questions to Ask Any Potential Partner
When evaluating vendors, plant managers and engineers should dig deeper than pricing or delivery times. Ask questions that reveal whether your partner truly understands the complexity of your industry:
Do they provide ASME-certified fabrication?
Pressure vessels, tanks, and piping systems must meet strict standards. An ASME U-Stamp demonstrates the vendor is qualified to fabricate equipment for pressure applications.
Anything less puts your facility at risk.
Are they authorized with an NBIC R-Stamp for repairs?
It’s not enough to build new. Equipment wear and repairs must comply with the National Board Inspection Code (NBIC). Only certified vendors can legally and safely alter or repair pressure-retaining equipment.
Do they offer reverse engineering of legacy components?
Many plants rely on decades-old equipment no longer supported by OEMs. A capable partner should be able to reverse engineer parts, bringing them up to modern standards without forcing costly full replacements.
Do they understand regulatory compliance requirements across industries?
Food, beverage, chemical, dairy, and defense sectors all operate under different regulatory bodies and compliance frameworks. Your partner should be able to navigate this landscape and build equipment that passes inspection everywhere it operates.
Do they have a compliance team or officer overseeing builds?
A true partner goes beyond fabrication. They provide documentation, traceability, and compliance support, making inspections faster and protecting your brand from non-compliance risks.
The Schmidt Advantage
Choosing Schmidt means choosing more than just a supplier. It means choosing a partner who has been part of this industry’s evolution for 75+ years, adapting through new regulations, rising standards, and shifting technologies. Unlike niche vendors, Schmidt’s divisions work together to deliver complete, turnkey solutions with one point of accountability.
- One Partner, One Standard: Fabrication, machining, coatings, and confectionery, all aligned under Schmidt’s reputation for quality and compliance.
- Documentation You Can Trust: From ASME-certified fabrication to NBIC R-Stamp repairs, every job is backed by a compliance-ready paper trail.
- Industry Insight: With clients across food, beverage, chemical, dairy, energy, and defense, Schmidt brings a rare cross-industry perspective to solving plant challenges.
When you’re choosing an equipment partner, the bottom line is this: Don’t just buy machinery. Choose a partner who protects your uptime, ensures your compliance, and stands beside you when the stakes are highest.
Compliance is the True Measure of Food Processing Equipment
To put it simply: non-compliance costs more than compliance.
- Risks: shutdowns, recalls, fines, lost reputation.
- Costs: downtime, wasted ingredients, staff retraining.
- Employees: safety and training fall under occupational health rules.
- Agencies: regulators like the FDA, USDA, OSHA, and international standards bodies enforce compliance in the public interest.
What We’ve Learned in 75 Years: Non-compliance isn’t just about breaking rules; it’s about failing to demonstrate accountability and establishing procedures that regulators expect.
How Schmidt Industrial Services Helps You Comply
At Schmidt, compliance is built into everything we do:
- Fabrication Division: ASME-certified tanks and vessels with full documentation for regulators.
- Machining Division (Wagner): prototyping and custom components made with tight tolerances to meet compliance specs.
- Industrial Coatings Division (ERS): FDA-approved linings and corrosion control to maintain food safety.
- McCarter Division: Dedicated confectionery equipment built with sanitary design and regulatory compliance requirements in mind.
Our full-service model means one partner manages your compliance risks, documentation, and inspections under one roof. You don’t just get equipment, you get a partner who helps you manage risk, comply with relevant laws, and stay ahead of the regulatory environment.
Built on Experience. Engineered for What’s Next.
From storage tanks and mixing vessels to heat exchangers, custom fabrication, and the coatings that keep equipment compliant, food processing isn’t just about machines…it’s about protecting uptime, ensuring safety, and earning consumer trust.
This guide has walked through the types of food processing equipment, the materials they’re made from, the industries that depend on them, and the challenges facilities face.
At every stage, one truth stands out: success isn’t about buying parts, it’s about choosing a partner who sees the full picture: compliance, performance, and the bottom line.