Leading a
century of progress
in technology
and cuisine

It is the start of the Roaring Twenties. The Great War has just ended and a wind of regenerative euphoria is sweeping across Europe: new fashions, and new industries to support them, are being born. Italian entrepreneurial spirit is reawakening, with innovative businesses flourishing everywhere. Subalpina, a cooperative founded by six young men to produce household and personal care articles, including some male and female grooming products for barbers and hairdressers, is founded at Omegna, in the Alto Cusio area of Piedmont. Led by Mario Caldi, over the next twenty years the cooperative grows to employ forty production workers and five office staff.

Carlo Caldi, the founder’s son, takes over the reins at Subalpina and carries through the genuine revolution which will transform it into Girmi, a large Italian household appliance corporation. Alive to international trends, he is fascinated by the electric blenders used in the United States and begins to work on a first line of household cooking appliances to launch on the Italian market, with the aim of eliminating repetitive tasks from the kitchen and setting housewives free to use their imagination.

A new household appliance sets the seal on the company’s success: the Gastronomo, which puts the previous year’s blender in the shade. This appliance is so successful that about a thousand pieces a week are produced. The Gastronomo has a range of easily interchangeable accessories, including beater, mincer, grater, juicer, citrus juicer, ice crusher and even coffee frother. This ancestor of the modern food processor is very popular with housewives and transforms home lifestyles. In fact, from the Fifties the multipurpose blender becomes a minor status symbol for Italian families, who are experiencing the start of an age of new prosperity. The advertising of those years, when Girmi is already setting the pace, also portrays a new way of life, based on mental and physical wellbeing, and more emancipation for women.

A decade which is to mark the peak of Girmi’s success opens. By now, the brand has conquered the Italian and foreign market with its well organised sales network and the state-of-the-art technology and design of its products. The new production site at Cireggio guarantees very high rates of production and the Italian household appliances market is booming. The heart of the company is the technical department, which is continually evolving innovative products. Luca Meda, a famous name in Italian design, joins the company and is instructed to restyle some products already on the market and design new ones. Meda’s magic touch gives a new lease of life to many Girmi products already popular with consumers. His coffee pots, masterpieces of improvisation and technique, are famous, as are his ice-cream makers and the 1983 Caffeconcerto coffee maker, still an Italian design icon.

Girmi is acquired by Rimini-based company Trevidea, which already owns leading small household appliances brand G3 Ferrari. This marks the start of a new story for the brand with ambitious goals, although still maintaining the great Italian tradition of which it was one of the key pillars. Convenience and style, the distinctive features of Girmi household appliances, are sacrosanct: the aim now is to innovate the product range and design while conserving the essence of Girmi’s identity.

On April 10, 2024, the Italian brand of small appliances GIRMI was registered as No. 726 in the Special Register of Historic Brands of National Interest and subsequently authorized to use the specific logo "Historic brand of national interest" as per the Decree of the Italian Minister of Economic Development. An important recognition that honors us and motivates us to renew our commitment to continue along a path whose roots date back to 1919. Special thanks go to all the families who have chosen us, making all of this possible, and we hope they will continue to renew their trust and preference in us in the future.