Heat and Control reaches two milestones in 2020

Heat and Control marks two major milestones in 2020 — the 70th anniversary of the company and the 25th anniversary of its FastBack horizontal motion conveyor.

Equipment manufacturer and food processing industry supplier Heat and Control takes pride in the innovative solutions it has developed over the seven decades for the food, pharmaceutical and non-food industries.

“We have incredible people in our organisation, customers believe in our abilities and there is respectful collaboration with our global partners,” said Tony Caridis, President, Heat and Control.

One of the keys to the company’s success has been Caridis’s ability to recognise industry-changing technology. Vibratory conveyors dominated the industry until the FastBack horizontal motion conveyor entered the market and caught his attention.

“I’m always searching for ways to improve our solutions for our customers, and the FastBack technology fit well into our Heat and Control family of brands. It has grown into a product line that is leading the way in conveying and product handling arena,” Caridis said.

Until the 1990s, vibratory conveyors were the industry standard.

Blake Svejkovsky, Heat and Control General Manager – Product Handling Systems, was working in the food industry and recognised the need for a robust, reliable, maintenance-free, quiet conveying solution gentle enough to avoid product breakage, segregation and loss of coatings. Together with his father, they created the FastBack horizontal motion conveyor.

“One of the best things, from a personal perspective, about growing up around my father, who was an engineer, was learning from someone who had both the ability to think at the very highest levels of physics and the know-how to actually go out into the garage, run a lathe and milling machine, and build things,” Svejkovsky recalled. With clever thinking and design, they created FastBack in 1995 and looked to transform the conveying/product handling industry.

After overcoming misperceptions related to horizontal motion, FastBack quickly grew.

Caridis saw an opportunity to boost Heat and Control’s family of brands and move to the next level.

The decision to join Heat and Control was simple for Svejkovsky. Besides deep market penetration, Heat and Control was also a family-owned business with a solid reputation in the industry for integrity, reliability, innovative technology and excellent customer service. They introduced horizontal motion technology to the world’s food processing industry, and it continues to provide gentle, sanitary and dependable distribution and seasoning solutions.

“I think there are really two main contributors to FastBack’s success,” Svejkovsky said. “The first is Heat and Control’s philosophy that ‘better-and-better beats better-and-best’, which means that as individuals and as a company, we’re never going to consider our work as being done or a solution as the best that we could possibly produce. So then, we’re always innovating, always looking to improve our service and our products to keep our customers operating at the cutting edge of performance.

“I’d say that the second contributor to FastBack’s success is simply Heat and Control’s culture of listening to the customer. As with the genesis of the FastBack, Heat and Control develops solutions based on our customers’ feedback, whether it be improvements that we could make to our existing product line or something entirely new. So, the voice of the customer is at the heart of our ever-growing and improving product line, and I’m always excited about what we’ll learn next.”

With more than 30 patents and more than 20,000 units worldwide, FastBack continues to advance the industry.

After 70 years, Heat and Control now has almost 1600 employees worldwide in more than 30 offices.