Food and beverage brands
Food and beverage brands release equipment when they shut a plant, fold lines into fewer sites, or retire a product, and a whole plant's process equipment often comes out at once.
Food and beverage
Used Food and Beverage Processing Equipment
Federal Equipment Company buys used food processing equipment from food and beverage plants and sells it from more than 1 million sq ft of storage in Cleveland, OH. Our inventory covers the processing side of food and beverage plants: jacketed kettles and tanks; ribbon, paddle, and plow mixers; sifters and mills; heat exchangers; homogenizers; spray dryers; and the feeders and conveyors between them.
1957Founded in Cleveland, OH
1M+ sq ftStorage space in Cleveland
300+Online auctions since 2019
275+Equipment categories in stock
What this covers
Food Manufacturing Equipment, from Ingredient to Finished Product
A food plant runs the same unit operations as any process plant: mixing, size reduction, heating and cooling, separation, and drying. What changes is the product, the sanitation standard, and how often the line is washed down.
Our food and beverage inventory runs from ingredient receiving to the point a product is ready to fill. Fillers, wrappers, and case packers are on our packaging equipment page, and supplement makers will find their lines on our nutraceutical and supplement equipment page. Pet food and animal nutrition plants run much of the same dry equipment, and we have auctioned equipment from both.
The boilers, chillers, compressed air, and water treatment behind a food plant are on our plant utility equipment page. We work with food and beverage manufacturers and do not handle restaurant or food service equipment.
We are a third-generation family business and have bought and sold used process and packaging equipment since 1957. We buy surplus outright or on consignment, and we run online auctions when a food or beverage plant closes or consolidates.
How food equipment reaches us
Three kinds of seller account for most of it.
Flavor, ingredient, and contract manufacturers
Flavor houses, ingredient makers, and contract manufacturers sell surplus when a program ends or a formulation changes, and they buy equipment for the next one. Some have both sold surplus to us and bought equipment from us.
Projects that never started
Some equipment never runs at all. We have auctioned unused tanks and fermenters from a brewery project, unused process and bottling equipment from a spirits plant, and a never-commissioned PET bottling line.
By product
Food Processing Equipment by Product
The product decides the train. A seasoning plant and a dairy share very little equipment, so start from what you make and work back to the machines.
Dry ingredients, flavors, and powders
Seasonings, flavors, sweeteners, starches, and dry beverage mixes run on a dry train. Bulk bag unloaders and bag dump stations feed ribbon blenders and paddle mixers or plow mixers, and the blend is then milled, sifted, and checked by a metal detector before it fills. A liquid flavor or dairy concentrate becomes a powder in a spray dryer. We have auctioned a powdered flavor maker's ribbon blenders, pilot spray dryer, and sifters, and flavor and ingredient makers are among our customers.
Sauces, dairy, and other liquids
Sauces, soups, fillings, and dairy products are cooked and held in jacketed kettles and tanks, many with twin or triple motion agitation that scrapes the wall while an inner blade mixes. Thin products are pasteurized on plate heat exchangers, and products too thick for plates run through scraped surface heat exchangers. Homogenizers stabilize milk, creams, and emulsions, and disc centrifuges separate and clarify. We have handled complete HTST pasteurizing systems, scraped surface heat exchangers that ran cream cheese, an ice cream inclusion feeder, and the CIP systems that clean all of it.
Bakery and snacks
Bakery and snack equipment comes through less often than ingredient and liquid processing equipment, and usually as part of a plant sale. We have handled dough sheeters, depositors, sigma blade double arm mixers, and food extruders, along with a bar forming and cutting line and a snack plant's optical sorter. The wrappers, baggers, and weighers at the end of these lines are packaging equipment. Ask what is available before you assume it is not.
Confectionery and chocolate
Candy and chocolate lines are some of the most specialized equipment in a food plant, and they tend to move as whole lines. We have handled continuous hard candy cookers, candy forming and twisting machines, starch mogul and depositing equipment, cooked chewy candy lines, and depositors with cooling tunnels. On the chocolate side, that includes bean roasters, winnowers, nib grinders, tempering machines, enrobers, and complete mold lines. Most of it moved through plant auctions, so the warehouse listings are not the limit.
Meat and prepared foods
Meat and prepared food plants run mixers, formers, and coating equipment ahead of freezing. We have handled dual-shaft paddle mixers, patty formers, batter and breading machines, blanchers, and rotary washers, along with a vacuum filler, a sausage linker, a crust freezer, and a cryogenic freezer. A pasta plant's shell, sheet, stuffing, and freezing lines have come through our auctions as well.
Beverages, brewing, and distilling
A beverage plant is mostly tanks, heat exchangers, and water treatment ahead of a filler. We have auctioned an unused brewery's fermenters, wort tanks, and storage tanks, and from a beverage contract manufacturer, a 3.5-barrel brewhouse with inline carbonators and can and bottle fillers. A spirits plant's processing tanks, reverse osmosis system, and bottling line have gone the same way. Fillers for these lines are listed under liquid fillers.
Aseptic filling for shelf-stable drinks comes through occasionally: we have auctioned a never-commissioned PET bottling line with an aseptic filler. Sterile drug filling is a different discipline, covered on our aseptic processing equipment page.
Browse the categories
Mixing, cooking, and fermentation
Size reduction and sifting
Heating, cooling, and drying
Separation and cleaning
Handling and inspection
Equipment
Used Food Machinery by Process Step
Food plants and equipment dealers often use different names for the same machine, and a listing follows whoever wrote it. Grouped by what each machine does, the names sort out quickly.
Mixers and blenders
A ribbon blender and a ribbon mixer are the same machine, and a paddle mixer is the gentler version of the same horizontal trough. Plow mixers throw product off the trough wall at higher speed, which shortens cycles on cohesive powders and lets choppers break up lumps. Dual-shaft paddle mixers are common in meat and protein plants, and sigma blade double arm mixers handle doughs and stiff confectionery masses.
Sifters and screeners
Sifter, screener, sieve, and separator all describe the same job: removing oversize and foreign matter from a dry product. Circular vibratory screeners, the type SWECO calls a separator, handle most food powders, while rectangular gyratory screens take higher volumes of granular product. A screener just before filling is a common last check, with a metal detector beside it.
Heat exchangers
Plate heat exchangers handle thin liquids such as milk, beverages, and brines, and a plate pack with a holding section and controls is the core of an HTST pasteurizer. Shell and tube exchangers tolerate particulates and higher pressures. Scraped surface heat exchangers, often called Votators after the brand name, heat or cool products too thick for either, such as cream cheese and fillings.
Homogenizers and high shear mixers
A high-pressure homogenizer, such as a Gaulin or a Niro Soavi, uses a piston pump to force product through a narrow valve. That breaks fat and oil droplets down to a stable size. Rotor-stator high shear mixers from Silverson, Ross, and IKA emulsify by shear at far lower pressure, inline or in the tank. Listings often call both types homogenizers, so check which design a unit is before you compare them.
Dryers and evaporators
Spray dryers turn milk, whey, flavors, and other liquids into powder in one pass. Evaporators concentrate a liquid before it is dried, and freeze dryers remove water at low temperature for products that cannot take heat.
Separators and clarifiers
A disc centrifuge is called a separator when it splits cream from milk or one liquid from another, and a clarifier when it removes fine solids. Decanter centrifuges take heavier solids loads and discharge them continuously.
Manufacturers
Food and Beverage Equipment by Manufacturer
We are a dealer, not a manufacturer. Every machine we sell was built by an OEM, and these are brands that come through regularly from food and beverage plants.
Dry ingredients and powders
Littleford FKM and FM plow mixers, Marion Process Solutions BPS and SPY paddle mixers, and AIM RB ribbon blenders, often with a #4 sanitary interior finish, lead the mixing side. SWECO separators, including the LS, ZS, and MX series, and Russell Finex and Kason screeners handle sifting. Fitzpatrick Fitzmills and Urschel Comitrol processors cover size reduction, and Acrison feeders and Flexicon bulk bag unloaders move powder between steps.
Liquids, dairy, and sauces
Lee Industries double motion (often listed as twin motion) and triple motion kettles are the vessels we handle most, along with Groen and Hamilton kettles and Cherry-Burrell tanks. Alfa Laval and Tranter built most of our plate heat exchangers, Votator II units cover scraped surface duty, and Gaulin and Niro Soavi high-pressure homogenizers come through regularly. Westfalia and Alfa Laval disc centrifuges handle separation, and Waukesha Cherry-Burrell, Tri-Clover, and Fristam sanitary pumps move product between them.
Confectionery, bakery, and meat
Baker Perkins sigma blade mixers come through often, and we have handled a Baker Perkins chewy candy line with its cooker and depositor. We have also handled NID depositing and starch mogul equipment and Hansella candy forming machines and cooling lines. In meat and prepared foods, Weiler dual-shaft paddle mixers come through repeatedly, and we have handled Nothum batter and breading machines and Franken rotary washers.
Brand pages
All manufacturers
Services
Inspection, Testing, and Spare Screens
Buying used works when you know what you are getting and can keep it running. Three things help with both.
Inspection
See it under power before you buy
Every machine in our Cleveland, OH warehouse is open to inspection, and we run kettles, mixers, and pumps under power wherever the hookups allow. Plenty of food plants have the original builder's representative check a machine for them, and when a trip is not practical we walk you through it on a live video tour.
Refurbishment
Refurbishment and testing
Inspection, refurbishment, and testing can be arranged before shipment. Our shop can replace seals and gaskets, test motors, and pressure test the jacket on a kettle or tank before it ships.
Parts
Screens and mill parts
PharmParts, our parts division, sells replacement screens and parts for SWECO separators, including self-cleaning screens, ball tray assemblies, and deck clamps, along with Fitzmill screens. Screen cloth wears out long before the sifter, so a spare set keeps a line running.
Buying used
Buying Used Equipment for a Food or Beverage Plant
The machines in a food plant are familiar to any process engineer. What sets food apart is sanitation: how the equipment is built, what it ran, and how it will be cleaned.
Sanitary construction
Product-contact materials have to be suitable, cleanable, and compatible with what you make, and stainless steel, usually 304 or 316, is the most common. Listings give the material and the interior finish, such as #4, when the plate or the original paperwork records it, but a finish alone does not make a machine sanitary. Check welds, drainage, seals, and gaskets for crevices or dead spots where product can lodge, and confirm the machine can be cleaned the way your plant cleans.
Allergens and prior product
Ask what a machine ran before you buy it. A mixer or sifter that handled peanuts, milk, wheat, or soy needs an allergen cleaning and verification step in your own sanitation program before it runs a product free of them. Where a machine also needs microbial cleaning, our decontamination service reduces bioburden, including bacterial spores, mold, and biofilms, before shipment.
Jackets and pressure ratings
Most kettles and processing tanks are jacketed for steam or chilled water, and the rating plate tells you what the jacket and the vessel can take. Match the jacket rating to your steam supply, and look for a National Board number on vessels that need one. A jacket test before shipment confirms that an idle vessel still holds pressure.
Lead time
New food processing equipment is usually built to order, and a kettle, spray dryer, or complete line can take months to arrive. Equipment already in our warehouse can ship in days or weeks once inspection and any refurbishment are complete.
Auctions
Food Processing Equipment Auctions
We run online auctions for food and beverage plants that are closing, consolidating, or clearing surplus. Each sale lists where the equipment sits and how to arrange a preview, which is usually by appointment.
Past sales have included a cereal plant, a powdered flavor maker, a snack plant's packaging and sorting line, a pasta maker, and meat and prepared food processors. Others came from a chocolate and confectionery plant, a hard candy plant, a beverage contract manufacturer, and unused brewery and spirits plants. Whole lines often sell together, which suits a buyer who wants equipment that already ran as a unit.
Equipment in our warehouse is different: it can be inspected in Cleveland, OH, and refurbished and tested before it ships. Upcoming sales and the archive are on our current and past auctions page.
Selling surplus
Sell Used Food Processing Equipment
Most of the food equipment we buy comes from companies closing a plant, consolidating lines, or changing a product, and some comes from projects that never started production. An outright purchase gives a seller a firm number and a set date to clear the floor, while consignment lets the seller share in what the equipment brings.
Send us a list and we will recommend how to sell it.
- Line teardown, rigging, and trucking with nothing due up front, since expenses are deducted from the sale proceeds
- Online auctions and liquidations for a whole plant, from processing through packaging and utilities
- Investment recovery programs that handle equipment retired from several plants each year as one ongoing flow
- Complete or desktop appraisals from our Certified Equipment Appraisers, for the kinds of equipment we buy and sell, with USPAP-compliant appraisals available and no sale required
Start with a list
Send an equipment list with photos of each nameplate and the date the plant must be clear. Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Sell your surplus machinesBuying instead? Tell us what you are looking for.
FAQ
Questions About Used Food Processing Equipment
Still have a question? Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Do you run food processing equipment auctions?
Yes. We run online auctions for food and beverage plants that are closing or clearing surplus, from ingredient and confectionery plants to breweries and meat processors. Buyers bid online, and most sales offer a preview by appointment. Upcoming sales and the past archive are on our auctions page, and a plant can be sold the same way.
What should I check on used sanitary food processing equipment?
Start with the product-contact material: it must be cleanable and compatible with your product, and it is most often 304 or 316 stainless steel. Then look at welds, drainage, gaskets, seals, and fittings for crevices and wear. Check the rating plate on jacketed kettles and tanks against your steam supply, and ask what the machine last ran. Come see it in our Cleveland, OH warehouse, where we power machines up whenever the hookups allow.
Can used food equipment carry allergens from the last product?
It can, which is why the prior product is the first question to ask. Equipment that ran peanuts, tree nuts, milk, wheat, soy, or another major allergen needs an allergen cleaning and verification step before it runs a product free of them. That step belongs in your own sanitation program. Our decontamination service reduces bioburden, but it does not remove allergens or test for them, so plan the allergen cleaning and verification yourself.
What is the difference between a ribbon blender and a plow mixer for food powders?
Both blend dry powders in a horizontal trough. A ribbon blender moves product gently with two counter-flowing helical ribbons and suits free-flowing seasonings, mixes, and premixes. A plow mixer runs plow-shaped tools at higher speed, which throws the batch into the open space above it and shortens cycle times. It handles cohesive powders well, often with choppers to break up lumps. Paddle mixers are gentler still and suit fragile or friable ingredients.
Do you sell dairy processing equipment?
Yes. We handle the processing side of a dairy: HTST pasteurizing systems built on plate heat exchangers, high-pressure homogenizers, and disc separators and clarifiers. Jacketed and horizontal storage tanks, scraped surface heat exchangers for cream cheese and similar products, and CIP systems come through as well. Dairy fillers and cartoners are packaging equipment. Ask about anything you do not see listed.
Do you sell brewery and distillery equipment?
Yes, though it comes through mostly in plant sales, not single listings. We have auctioned an unused brewery's fermenters, wort tanks, and storage tanks; a small brewhouse with carbonators and fillers; and a spirits plant's processing tanks, water treatment, and bottling line. Jacketed tanks, plate heat exchangers, sanitary pumps, and CIP systems for both are regular warehouse stock.
Do you buy all the equipment from a closing food plant?
Yes. We buy whole plants as well as single machines, including processing, packaging, and utility equipment, and we can split a plant between an outright purchase, consignment, and an auction. Send an equipment list with nameplate photos and the date the building must be clear. We pay for rigging and removal up front and recover the cost from the sale proceeds. Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com.
Equipping a line or clearing a plant? Talk to our sales team.
Call 800-652-2466 or email sales@fedequip.com. Inspections in Cleveland, OH by appointment.
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