Paul Mueller Company

Paul Mueller Company manufactures stainless steel processing equipment and is one of the world's largest manufacturers of milk coolers for dairy farms. The company was incorporated in Missouri in 1946, succeeding a business established in 1940 that initially performed general sheet metal work for the building industry. In the mid-1940s, operations expanded to include poultry processing equipment and stainless steel cheese-making vats for dairy plants. In 1955, the company began manufacturing stainless steel milk coolers for dairy farms, and by 1960, it started producing stainless steel storage tanks, discontinuing its sheet metal operations. A water-purification product line was acquired in January 1987. Today, Paul Mueller Company is a leading manufacturer of custom-made stainless steel processing equipment for various industries, including food, dairy, beverage, chemical, and pharmaceutical. Its products are used in industrial applications such as food and beverage processing, pharmaceutical and biotechnological processing, chemical processing, water distillation, heat-transfer, HVAC, heat recovery, process cooling, and thermal-energy storage. In December 1997, the company opened a microbrewery and brewpub to demonstrate its brewery technology and expand marketing of brewery systems. In 1999, it established a joint venture by acquiring 50% of Mueller Montana de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., a Mexican fabricator of processing equipment. A license, requirements, and manufacturing agreement in 2001 permits the company to manufacture and sell certain heat-transfer products, with an initial four-year term and automatic renewal unless 180-day nonrenewal notification is given. Under this agreement, the licensor exclusively purchases its requirements for certain heat-transfer products from Paul Mueller Company.