History of Caleffi

Today, Caleffi Group, with headquarters in Fontaneto d’Agogna, Italy, employs 1,300 people in 10 production plants in Italy with subsidiary locations in England, North America, Germany, France, Poland, Turkey, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Brazil and Australia.

From these sales hubs, Caleffi sells its products in more than 90 countries.

In 1961, however, Francesco Caleffi started out in a basement with a couple of lathes as a small OEM of brass and steel fittings for manufacturers within the PHC and PVF industries.

But thanks to its effective sales organization and product quality, the company became the business we know well today as an international maker of branded Caleffi products – “Made In Caleffi” – for the plumbing and hydronics industries.

After many key business developments, including acquisitions and opening additional factories and sale offices in other countries, Caleffi launched North American operations in 2002 in Wisconsin and five years later built its original 35,000-square-foot facility in Milwaukee to house its main offices, technical laboratory, warehousing and assembly operations.

Earlier this year, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson proclaimed May 19 as “Caleffi Day” to honor the company’s 20th anniversary in the U.S.

Internationally, Caleffi ended 2021 with the equivalent of $417 million in consolidated revenue, up 34 percent from 2020, marking substantial growth not only in its Italian market, but around the world. In fact, 63 percent of its business last year was earned outside of Italy.

As we mention in our main feature, Milwaukee added space, but it wasn’t the only location to get a new look recently. Offices in Portugal; the Netherlands; Turkey and the UK all modernized their offices. By next year, brand-new office buildings are expected to replace existing sites in Germany and Poland.

Mostra Convegno Expocomfort

On our second full business day in Italy, we joined a couple hundred other Caleffi personnel and independent sales reps from Italy and around the world to visit the Mostra Convegno Expocomfort, held June 28-July 1 in Milan.

We’d never been to this show before. But any readers who have had the opportunity to travel to Germany for the ISH show in Frankfurt, would be on familiar ground.

The every-other-year show is laid out in 12 separate exhibit halls along an outdoor concourse with each building categorized by product themes, such as HVAC, plumbing and renewable energy.

Caleffi’s spacious booth included sections to highlight its products, R&D work done at the company’s Cuborosso, its R&D lab, along with a very popular café that served refreshments throughout the day.  

This year’s MCE, which marked the first time the show had been held since the pandemic put the event on hold for the past four years, featured more than 90,700 attendees from 130 countries and 1,581 exhibitors.

“Mostra” means “show” in Italian, and “convegno” means “conference.” But the key to the event can be seen in the last two syllables of the last name in the title.

“The pandemic has put the focus on living comfort and the healthiness of the environments we live in every day even more evident, accelerating the adoption of building technologies,” said Massimiliano Pierini, managing director of Reed Exhibitions Italia, in a press release. “The availability of innovative products and solutions has opened up scenarios and opportunities that were unthinkable just a few years ago.”