DGB Refrigeration’s founder Doug Barlow
DGB Refrigeration is marking it’s 30th anniversary this year.
The company was first established in 1994 by its founder Doug Barlow. He had originally worked for East Midlands Electricity Board and Blackburn Starling, running their refrigeration departments. With this wealth of knowledge and experience in refrigeration gained over 40 years, Doug, along with support of his family, set up the company.
DGB Refrigeration was born from humble beginnings in a small council lock-up refurbishing beer coolers for such companies as Scottish & Newcastle and local Nottinghamshire breweries, which have all sadly now demised. With this in mind DGB had to explore other fields, one being the vending industry which proved to be a perfect match. With DGB’s ethos for quality and expertise, a rapid rate of growth was experienced, mainly fuelled by the manufacture of water chillers as well as repairs/refurbishment.
To facilitate this growth, DGB moved to its current purpose built factory in 1999.
Over the years, people’s choices and cultures seemed to change – preferring coffee dispensed from the vending machines instead of cold drinks. This decline again led to DGB having to diversify – building bespoke condensing units for the food sector and chillers for use in the medical industry, for a company which produces scalp coolers which helps prevention of hair loss to patients having chemotherapy. This is something the company is ae extremely proud of.
Sadly, Doug passed away in 2016 after a courageous year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. However, the values he instilled within the company still live on and are very much at the forefront of the business today, quality being the top one, pride in what you do, and not forgetting customer service. Doug’s motto being “it’s nice to be nice’’.
DGB is still very much a family business with Doug’s son Gary now managing director and his wife and son still working for the business.
The last couple of years has seen the business go from strength to strength this year repairing/refurbing over 2,500 vending machine chillers, as well as a substantial growth in manufacture, leading us to take on a new apprentice and more in the future.
DGB Refrigeration would like to thank all customers old and new, suppliers and everyone who has worked at DGB Refrigeration over the past 30 years making this possible.
DGB Refrigeration’s 30th anniversary mugs
