About Us

While working for a large Chicago chemical company, Steve Berkowitz saw a need for a more hands-on consultative approach to solving sanitation problems in the food processing industry.  So in 1986, he founded Mist Chemical to formulate cleaners and sanitizers to meet the specific needs of that industry. His combination of customer specific products and personal attention to each customer’s sanitizing needs resulted in steady growth and an opportunity to extend his unique services to the rapidly evolving Ethanol and Bio-fuels industry. To aid in the development of an Ethanol product line, Steve brought in Mike Welker as The Director of Technology in 2001. Mike’s concentration on CIP process for ethanol plants as resulted in the formulations of a wide variety of CIP products and services. He has over 20 years of experience working for various chemical companies throughout the United States and is the country’s leading expert in process CIP waste reduction.

As in any competitive situation, more often than not, the secret to success is to be better than the competition.  In the case of cleaners and sanitizers for the Ethanol and food processing industries, Mist found that being better meant zeroing in on waste reduction with consistent, top quality products and customized hands-on service. In order to meet this challenge and fully understand all aspects of their production processes, Steve and Mike have spent countless hours in ethanol and food plants nationwide. To us, “Waste Reduction through Process Improvement” is more than a tagline. It’s what we do and it’s the key to our success.