Commercial and Service Industry Machinery Manufacturing (NAICS 33331)

This is a short "rollup" page. NAICS 33331 is a five-digit industry in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), the standard the U.S., Canada and Mexico use to group businesses. It sits one level above the six-digit national industry and one level below the four-digit industry group. For the full deep-dive — company profiles, economics and how-to-invest detail — see the child primer for 333310.

1. Overview

NAICS 33331 covers the workhorse machines that businesses use to serve their customers: commercial ovens, fryers and dishwashers for restaurants; industrial washers and dryers for laundromats, hotels and hospitals; snack and drink vending machines; car-wash tunnels; automotive shop lifts and tire changers; photocopiers and mailing machines; commercial floor scrubbers and sweepers; and optical and photographic instruments.[1] If a machine is too big, too specialized or too heavy-duty for a household but sits behind the counter of a commercial or service business, it is likely made here.

For an investor this is a classic "picks-and-shovels" corner of the economy: rather than betting on one restaurant chain or car-wash brand, you can own the company that equips all of them. The prize is the high-margin stream of spare parts, service and consumables that a large installed base of machines throws off for decades after the original sale.[2]

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

A NAICS industry (five digits) can contain several national industries (six digits). This one does not: NAICS 33331 contains exactly one child, 333310, which carries the identical name. That means the five-digit industry and the six-digit national industry are, for all practical purposes, the same thing — every dollar and every worker counted at 33331 belongs to 333310, and vice versa. There is no aggregation across siblings to do, and no residual "other" bucket.

It has not always been that way, and the reason matters if you read history. In the 2022 NAICS revision the Census Bureau merged the three six-digit codes that used to sit beneath 33331 — optical instruments and lenses (333314), photographic and photocopying equipment (333316) and other commercial and service industry machinery (333318) — into a single 333310, and began publishing detailed statistics on the new basis with the 2022 Economic Census. So 33331 is a stable five-digit shell whose insides were re-cut. Any series that splices pre-2022 and post-2022 "333310," "333318" or "commercial machinery" data without an explicit bridge is unreliable.[3]

So this page exists mainly to hold the level's own official figures and to point you onward. The real content — the product families inside the code (commercial foodservice equipment, commercial laundry, vending, automotive service equipment, office and photocopying machinery, commercial floor-cleaning machinery, and optical/photographic gear), the exclusions (household appliances sit in industry group 3352, ophthalmic lenses in 339115, mechanics' hand tools in 332216, and most commercial refrigeration in 333415), the company-by-company map, and the full economics — lives in the 333310 primer.[1] Read that one for detail.

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

These are the federal ground-truth figures for NAICS 33331. Because the industry has a single child, they are identical to 333310's numbers:

• Shipments/receipts: about $32.1 billion (2022 Economic Census, nominal dollars).[4]
• Firms: about 1,630 companies (2022 Economic Census).[4]
• Establishments: 1,731 manufacturing locations (2023 County Business Patterns).[5]
• Employment: 80,504 workers (2023 County Business Patterns).[5] A second federal series, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' National Employment Matrix, counts 88,700 jobs in 2024 and projects 89,600 by 2034 — essentially flat, about 0.1% a year.[6] The two are built differently (different program, different year), so read the gap as measurement, not growth.
• Annual payroll: $6.65 billion (2023), or roughly $82,600 per worker — above the all-industry average, reflecting skilled manufacturing labor.[5]
• Real output: $23.5 billion in 2024 in chained 2017 dollars, projected to reach $26.4 billion by 2034 — growth of about 1.2% a year in real terms.[6] This is not comparable with the $32.1 billion above: different price basis, different year, different statistical program. Do not treat the gap as a decline.
• What counts as "small": the Small Business Administration's size standard here is 1,000 employees — a high bar that shows how capital- and scale-intensive the work is.[7]

Undercount / over-read caveat. This industry is measured cleanly: it is neither dominated by government nor by tiny informal operators, so the usual small-operator undercount does not apply. The opposite risk matters more here — do not over-read the number. The $32 billion counts what is produced at U.S. establishments; it is not the size of the U.S. market, which is larger because much foodservice and laundry machinery sold here is imported and because U.S.-based brands book substantial revenue from factories abroad. One researcher puts the U.S. foodservice-equipment market alone near $40 billion in 2025 — bigger than all of 33331's domestic output — precisely because it includes imports and global brand sales.[8] Read the federal figure as the size of the domestic manufacturing base, not the addressable market.

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

There is no pure large-cap "commercial machinery" stock and no dedicated exchange-traded fund (ETF, a fund that trades like a share). Because the level equals its one child, the investable map is exactly 333310's. In brief, value concentrates in a few places:

• Near-pure plays — now three, not two. Middleby (ticker MIDD) in commercial foodservice, with roughly $2.35 billion of segment revenue and a 40.2% gross margin in fiscal 2025; it announced in December 2025 that it is becoming a pure-play commercial-foodservice company, spinning off food processing and selling most of residential.[2][9] Alliance Laundry (ALH) in commercial laundry, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 9 October 2025 at $22 a share and reported about $1.71 billion of 2025 revenue and $436 million of adjusted EBITDA (a 25.5% margin).[10][11] And Tennant (TNC) in commercial floor-cleaning machinery, about $1.29 billion of 2024 revenue at a 16.2% adjusted EBITDA margin — a family the parent page previously did not name.[12]
• Diversified industrials where this is one segment among many: Illinois Tool Works (ITW), whose Food Equipment segment turned about $2.7 billion of revenue into $753 million of operating income (27.9% margin) in 2025; Dover (DOV), through Vehicle Service Group's lifts; Vontier (VNT), whose Repair Solutions segment ran about $633 million of revenue in 2024; and Crane NXT (CXT), which makes the payment modules inside vending machines.[13][14][15][16]
• Legacy office-machinery names in structural decline: Xerox (XRX) and Pitney Bowes (PBI).[17]
• Small- and mid-caps around the edges: EVI Industries (EVI) in laundry distribution and service, Standex (SXI) in foodservice refrigeration, and vending-technology firm Cantaloupe (CTLP), which agreed in June 2025 to be acquired by 365 Retail Markets for $11.20 a share (about $848 million) and is likely to leave public markets.[18]
• Private owners: Italy's Ali Group (which completed its acquisition of Welbilt in 2022), private-equity-backed Sonny's Enterprises and National Carwash Solutions in car-wash equipment, and many family-owned laundry, vending and foodservice makers.[19][20][21]

See the 333310 primer for the full table with segment revenue and notes.

5. How the money works

The economics are those of a cyclical equipment manufacturer with one defining twist — the aftermarket. A machine is sold once but runs for years and then needs a steady flow of parts, service and consumables (detergents, car-wash chemicals, filters). Alliance Laundry frames the scale of that tail well: it estimates a seven-to-thirteen-year replacement interval across an installed base of roughly eight million machines worldwide.[11] That "razor-and-razorblade" stream is higher-margin and far less cyclical than new-equipment sales, which is why a large installed base is the single most valuable asset a firm here can own — and why ITW's Food Equipment segment runs operating margins near 28% and Middleby's commercial-foodservice segment gross margins above 40%.[2][13] Raw materials are steel, aluminum, motors and electronic controls, so tariffs and metal prices move margins directly; pricing power decides whether they stick, and Alliance reported that price increases largely offset about $12 million of North American tariff cost in 2025.[11] Because customers can defer a capital purchase, orders and backlog turn before revenue does — the early-warning gauge for this whole level.[16] Several leaders (Middleby, ITW, Dover, Ali Group) grow as serial acquirers, buying niche brands and plugging them into shared distribution and service. Full detail is in the 333310 primer.

6. Demand drivers

• Customer capital spending — new restaurant, hotel, convenience-store, car-wash and laundromat openings and remodels, tied to the broader economic cycle and small-business formation.
• Foodservice spending — the largest single end market. U.S. food-away-from-home expenditure reached $1.52 trillion in 2024, a record 58.9% of total food spending, with full- and limited-service restaurants accounting for 72.6% of it. More locations and throughput support equipment demand, though squeezed restaurant margins can delay replacements.[22]
• Replacement cycles — worn-out machines swapped on a 7–15 year cadence put a floor under sales.
• Labor scarcity and automation — rising wages push operators toward labor-saving machines (automated fryers, kiosks, robotic car washes, autonomous floor scrubbers). Analysts increasingly cite labor substitution, not just age, as the reason a machine gets bought.[8]
• Efficiency rules and cashless payment — energy and water standards accelerate replacement (ENERGY STAR covers commercial ovens, fryers, dishwashers, steam cookers and more), and the shift to card and mobile payment is reviving vending and unattended retail while making mechanically sound but technologically obsolete machines worth replacing.[23][18]

7. Regulation

Lightly price-regulated — there is no rate-setting authority — but products must clear meaningful standards: U.S. Department of Energy efficiency rules and the ENERGY STAR program, which can force redesign and recertification;[23] EPA refrigerant phase-downs under the AIM Act (a 2020 law cutting hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants), which reshape ice makers and refrigerated dispensing equipment even though most commercial refrigeration sits in 333415;[24] UL safety and NSF sanitation certifications (effectively required to sell into commercial kitchens); and OSHA workplace-safety rules, with amusement rides and vehicle lifts carrying real product-liability risk. Connected payment and telemetry add cybersecurity and privacy obligations. Trade policy is a first-order cost input: Section 232 steel/aluminum and Section 301 China duties raise input costs and, in 2025, prompted price increases that softened vending demand.[16]

8. Consolidation

At the aggregate level the industry looks fragmented: the four largest firms account for about 15.5% of receipts, the top eight about 23.7%, the top 20 about 37.1%, the top 50 about 54.6%, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (a standard concentration gauge where below 1,500 is "unconcentrated") is just 111 — very low.[4] But that average hides the picture, and at this level that is the single most important thing to understand: the code lumps together several distinct product markets that do not compete with one another, and within each niche concentration is high. Commercial laundry is led by Alliance Laundry, which calls itself the leading North American supplier while describing the wider global industry as fragmented with many regional players; vending by a handful of makers; conveyorized car-wash equipment by Sonny's and National Carwash Solutions; vehicle lifts by Dover's Vehicle Service Group.[10][14][20][21] Consolidation is the defining trend, driven by serial acquirers and private equity — Middleby's dozens of foodservice deals, Ali Group's 2022 purchase of Welbilt, and sponsor roll-ups of the sub-segments.[2][19][20]

9. Risks

Cyclicality (new-equipment sales track customer capital budgets, and dealer inventory corrections amplify the turns); input-cost and tariff exposure, where price increases may protect dollars but cost units or share; import competition from European and Asian makers; secular decline in office and photocopying machinery — Xerox's pro-forma revenue fell 7.6% in 2025 even with 79% of revenue coming from post-sale streams, showing that a recurring service tail slows rather than stops installed-base erosion;[17] customer concentration among large chains; and technology disruption from cashless payment and automation. Labor cuts both ways: shortages among restaurant and cleaning operators drive automation demand, but a shortage of service technicians can erode the installed-base advantage itself if downtime becomes unacceptable. The aftermarket cushions the cycle but does not eliminate it.

10. How to invest & outlook

Because 33331 equals 333310, the how-to-invest routes are the same. Public-market exposure is stock-by-stock, with no dedicated fund: the most focused choices are Middleby (MIDD), Alliance Laundry (ALH) and Tennant (TNC), each a near-pure play on its own niche, with broader but more diluted exposure through diversified industrials (ITW, DOV, VNT, CXT) whose performance depends heavily on unrelated businesses.[2][10][12][13][14][15][16] Legacy office-machinery names (XRX, PBI) are turnaround or decline stories rather than growth vehicles.[17] (Valuation multiples, dividend yields and share prices vary widely and should be checked at the time of investing.) Private-market exposure to the manufacturers is largely an institutional/private-equity game; for most private investors the practical entry is one step downstream — owning the service businesses that deploy this equipment (express car washes, laundromats, vending and micro-market routes) or the regional dealers that sell and service it, where the same aftermarket economics accrue to the operator.[19][20]

Outlook: a steady, cash-generative, consolidating industrial niche. The structural case is durable — labor scarcity, efficiency and refrigerant rules, and cashless payment all keep the replacement cycle turning — but the growth rate is modest and the near-term picture mixed. Independent researchers expect the commercial-foodservice-equipment market to grow at a mid-single-digit annual rate through the late 2020s, while BLS projects real output for this industry at about 1.2% a year through 2034; against that, tariffs are raising input costs and softened vending and some capital-goods orders in 2025.[6][8][16] Cyclical and increasingly shaped by trade policy and automation rather than fast growth. For the full analysis, company table and sources, see the 333310 primer.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "NAICS 333310: Commercial and Service Industry Machinery Manufacturing — definition, examples and cross-references," 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=333310&input=333310&year=2022
2. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Middleby Corp — Form 10-K (FY2025)," 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/769520/000076952026000011/midd-20260103.htm
3. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Implementation Timeline and Correspondence Tables," 2022. https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/naics/2022/implementation-timeline.html
4. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 Economic Census — Concentration and receipts, NAICS 333310/33331" (receipts $32.06B; 1,630 firms; CR4 15.5%, CR8 23.7%, CR20 37.1%, CR50 54.6%; HHI 111.1), 2022.
5. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 333310" (1,731 establishments; 80,504 employees; annual payroll $6.65B), 2023.
6. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Employment and Output by Industry," National Employment Matrix, 2024. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/industry-employment-and-output.htm
7. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Small Business Size Standards, NAICS 333310 (1,000 employees)," 2023.
8. Future Market Insights / The Business Research Company, "Commercial Foodservice / Food Service Equipment Market outlook, size and drivers," 2025/2026. https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/foodservice-equipment-market
9. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Middleby Corp — Form 8-K, Q3 2025 results and portfolio transformation," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/769520/000076952025000028/middex991er-q320251.htm
10. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Alliance Laundry Holdings — IPO Prospectus," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1317685/000162828025042998/alliancelaundryholdingsinc.htm
11. Alliance Laundry Holdings, "Alliance Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results," 2026. https://ir.alliancelaundry.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/138/alliance-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-results
12. Tennant Company, "Tennant Company Reports 2024 Fourth Quarter and Full-Year Results," 2025. https://investors.tennantco.com/news/news-details/2025/Tennant-Company-Reports-2024-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results/
13. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Illinois Tool Works — Form 10-K (FY2025)," 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/49826/000004982626000008/itw-20251231.htm
14. Vehicle Service Group (A Dover Company), "About / brand overview (Rotary Lift, Chief, Forward)," accessed 2026. https://vsgdover.com/en/
15. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Vontier — Form 10-K (FY2024)," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1786842/000178684225000008/vnt-20241231.htm
16. Crane NXT, "Annual Report 2025." https://s202.q4cdn.com/225992893/files/doc_financials/2025/ar/Crane-NXT-Annual-Report-2025-Digital_Final.pdf
17. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Xerox Holdings — Form 10-K (FY2025)," 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1770450/000177045026000009/xrx-20251231.htm
18. 365 Retail Markets, "Cantaloupe, Inc. Enters into Definitive Agreement to Be Acquired by 365 Retail Markets ($11.20/share; ~$848M)," 2025. https://365retailmarkets.com/blog/cantaloupe-inc-enters-definitive-agreement-be-acquired-365-retail-markets
19. Ali Group, "Ali Group Completes Acquisition of Welbilt," 2022. https://www.aligroup.com/news/ali-group-completes-acquisition-of-welbilt/
20. Genstar Capital, "Sonny's Enterprises — company profile (conveyorized car-wash equipment)," accessed 2026. https://www.gencap.com/companies/sonnys-enterprises/
21. National Carwash Solutions, "About Us," accessed 2026. https://www.ncswash.com/about-us-car-wash-manufacturers-1/
22. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, "Food Service Industry: Market Segments," 2025. https://ers.usda.gov/topics/food-markets-prices/food-service-industry/market-segments
23. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency / Department of Energy, "ENERGY STAR Commercial Food Service Equipment," accessed 2026. https://www.energystar.gov/products/commercial_food_service_equipment
24. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Technology Transitions: HFC Restrictions by Sector," 2025. https://www.epa.gov/hfcs/technology-transitions-hfc-restrictions-sector