When the World Stood Still, Nemco Kept Going

In the spring of 2020, orders for commercial food equipment stopped almost overnight. Restaurants closed their dining rooms, and the business that supplies those kitchens went quiet behind them.

Within weeks, Nemco retooled its manufacturing in Hicksville, Ohio, and launched a product line that had nothing to do with countertop food equipment and everything to do with safety and sanitation. That decision explains how the company works better than any milestone on a 50-year timeline.

What stopped, and what operators faced instead

Equipment purchases are planning decisions. An operator budgets a new prep station months ahead, schedules the install, and trains the crew around it. When dining rooms closed, those plans went on hold across the industry at once, and a company that sells countertop throughput had very little left to answer.

The operators still working had moved on to a different problem. They were navigating health-and-safety protocols just to keep a door open, and the questions they brought to their equipment suppliers had nothing to do with prep speed. They needed to divide a counter, open a door without a hand on it, and put a sink where the floor plan had never called for one.

None of that was in any catalog. The equipment industry had spent decades optimizing for throughput, and now operators needed hardware for a problem that had never had a product category.

Nemco has answered this kind of request before

The company's first food-prep product exists because someone asked. A restaurant owner needed a better way to cut potatoes, a machine shop in Hicksville took the question seriously, and the Spiral Fry reached the market in 1981. How the Spiral Fry came out of a customer's potato problem is worth reading on its own. (Links to the existing origin blog, URL below.)

In 2020, the request came from the whole industry at once, and nobody was asking for a specific machine. Operators described the physical problem and left the solution open. Nemco treated it the way it had treated the potato, as a manufacturing question with an answer. Solving problems is part of our heritage.

What Nemco built

The line went out under one name, Pro-Hygiene Solutions, and it went out fast. Easy Shield™ was a clear partition. Clean Getaway™ opened a door without touching the handle. HyGenie™ was a hands-free dispenser, Stop 'n Scrub™ was a portable sink, and more followed.

None of it belonged to a Nemco product category before that spring. The company had spent four decades building equipment that cuts, cooks, warms, and holds food. Then it spent a few weeks building something else.

Why a countertop manufacturer could move that fast

A pivot like that is a tooling problem. Somebody has to design the part and get the production line running as fast as possible. That only happens when the people who design the product work in the same place as the people who build it.

Nemco has kept those two in the same place since the beginning. The company started in 1976 as a machine shop in Hicksville, Ohio. Ed Neidhardt founded it with his brother Gene and his father Earl, and the name says what they did: Neidhardt Engineering and Manufacturing Company. Fifty years later, the engineering and manufacturing are still in Hicksville.

Speed in manufacturing comes down to how many phone calls or emails stand between a decision and a machine. When the design engineer works in the same building as the production floor, someone can walk a change to the line the same day. That is unglamorous, but it's part of Nemco's ability to continue providing value to foodservice operators at the beginning of the pandemic.

For an operator reading this in 2026, that matters more than the anniversary does. A manufacturer that designs and builds under one roof can handle an unusual request without routing it through a supply chain first. In 2020, the same capability just happened to point at something with no catalog page. Ask a manufacturer where its engineering happens. The answer tells you how quickly it can respond when your operation needs something that isn't on the price list.

The line wound down when the need did

Pro-Hygiene Solutions is not in the Nemco catalog today. The need it answered passed, dining rooms filled back up, and the company put its floor back on countertop equipment.

Building a product because operators need it and retiring it when they stop are both rooted in the same instinct. The catalog reflects what operators are working on now, and nothing else. A catalog that only grows is a catalog nobody can navigate. In 2020, that meant partitions and portable sinks. Today, it means prep, cooking, warming, and merchandising equipment for a counter that has to earn its square footage.

The habit outlasted the product line

Nemco turns 50 in 2026. Companies usually celebrate an anniversary with a list of products and dates, but what actually carries a company 50 years is a habit: an operator describes a problem, and the people in Hicksville decide whether they can build the answer.

That happened with a potato in 1981. It happened at an industry scale in 2020. It happens now on custom builds that never make it into a catalog, for operators who call with an unusual counter and need a machine to match.

You can see how that plays out on the operators' side in our case studies.

Frequently Asked Questions About Nemco During the Pandemic

What did Nemco make during the 2020 shutdown?

Nemco launched a line called Pro-Hygiene Solutions within weeks of the industry shutdown. It included Easy Shield™ clear partitions, Clean Getaway™ hands-free door openers, HyGenie™ hands-free dispensers, and Stop 'n Scrub™ portable sinks. The line is no longer part of the Nemco catalog.

Does Nemco still sell Pro-Hygiene products?

No. Pro-Hygiene Solutions is not part of the current Nemco catalog. Nemco's product range today covers countertop prep, cooking, warming, merchandising, and condiment equipment for commercial kitchens.

How did Nemco develop a new product line so quickly?

Nemco designs and manufactures at its own facility in Hicksville, Ohio. Keeping engineering and production in one location shortens the distance between a product decision and a production run, which enabled the company to reach the market within weeks in 2020.

Where does Nemco manufacture its equipment?

Hicksville, Ohio. Ed Neidhardt founded the company there in 1976 as a machine shop with his brother Gene and his father Earl, and NEMCO stands for Neidhardt Engineering and Manufacturing Company. Nemco still designs and builds equipment at that location.

Ready for more Nemco success stories? Check out our case studies!