The Mepaco® brand has been around
for a long time. The company began in 1932 and operated out of Oakland, California. The
name Mepaco® stands for Meat Packers Equipment Company. For the first 40 years, Mepaco® was
a significant equipment supplier to deli meat, sausage, and smoked meat processors. Mepaco®
offered loaf molds and slicers, cooking and cooling racks, smokers, brine tanks, manual
cutting tables and workstations. Mepaco® also offered Mixers. One of their earlier Mixers
was called a Buffalo Mixer and was engineered to automate the sausage making
process.
Early catalogs highlight that the
mixer was also offered as a customized solution to include a heat jacket. The company would
develop more equipment products around mixing and cooking in the years that
followed.
Apache purchased the Mepaco® brand
in 1993. The assets were moved to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. It was an excellent fit for
Apache’s fabrication specialists because of our expertise in manufacturing stainless steel
original equipment for processing
industries.
With a background in heavy
industrial stainless equipment manufacturing and ASME expertise, Apache influenced the
equipment designs, especially processing equipment like mixers, cookers,
and blenders. The equipment transformed into strengthened frames
and components. Heat transfer technology was engineered to the level of expectations within
Apache’s critical industry processors. Under Apache’s ownership, Mepaco® processing
equipment began serving red meat, dairy, poultry, baking and processed foods industries.
Today’s Mixers, Cookers and
Blenders designed by Mepaco® are highly engineered and highly controlled systems for
large-scale batch operations. It is not uncommon for batch sizes to reach 8000 lbs. in
Mepaco®’s Mixers and Blenders. Mepaco®’s equipment solutions are seen in more industries
including pet
food, plant-based products, and prepared
foods.
The ThermaBlend® Cooker, debuted in 2006, is a trademarked brand. A
highly efficient cooking/blending solution, the ThermaBlend® has a massive heat transfer
benefit with highly efficient agitators and a patented scraper system that proves fast
processing times. True to Mepaco®’s value to processors, the ThermaBlend® Cooker is
engineered for specific customer goals, and is capable of cooking, searing, caramelizing,
chilling, sautéing, and blending.
Celebrating 90 years in
2022, Mepaco® is known for its formulating and thermal processing solutions. Our value to
processors is our ability to modify and adapt designs, functionality, and controls
technology to solve processing problems. The need for this level of customization has grown
into engineering entire processing room systems.
Mepaco® has designed coordinated systems integrated with high-performance
equipment for small and growing processing companies as well as Fortune 500 food
manufacturing
corporations.
The
Mepaco® team, works every day to
provide:
- Ruggedly engineered, reliable
equipment - Maximum yield
performance - Optimal designs for maintenance and
operation - Vigilant compliance for personnel and food
safety
What does the future
hold? Through interviews, conversations, and surveys, we are listening to customers and
learning about what they need from our company. We are looking at new equipment products
and making improvements in service support and resources in 2022, a direct result of recent
customer survey feedback. To our customers, thank you for your business and the valuable
feedback that helps us strengthen our
partnerships.
