Howard Bryman | December 15, 2025

Valenta roasters at the Hermetheus Coffee Crafters production headquarters in Idaho. All images courtesy of Hermetheus Coffee Crafters.

Idaho-based fluid-bed roasting equipment company Coffee Crafters is changing ownership, with Jason Scott, founder of roasting company Hermetheus Coffee, taking the helm.

Based in Olathe, Kansas, Scott is the creator of the Co-Pilot automation system, which was developed specifically for controlling the Coffee Crafters Valenta series machines. Under Scott’s ownership, the roaster maker will now be known as Hermetheus Coffee Crafters.

“From my years of Co-Pilot development, I already knew the entire team at Coffee Crafters quite well, so in terms of the actual ownership change, this always felt very natural and logical to every person involved,” Scott told Daily Coffee News. “There was an established level of trust, work ethic and ideas for the future. It just took a bit of time and planning for the financial and procedural elements to fall into place.”

The companies have not disclosed the acquisition’s financial terms. Ken Lathrop, Coffee Crafters’ founder, former CEO and head designer, is retiring and is the only current employee leaving the company. Operations will remain in their current locations with staff maintaining their roles, except engineer Chris Hammock, who is now a partner and vice president of engineering.

“Chris isn’t as customer-facing as Ken or Bryce Bull, but he and Ken were a power duo. He was instrumental in bringing the entire Valenta line of roasters to the market,” said Scott. “He is a rare talent on the engineering side of the fence, [and] an expert on the fabrication side. Chris can do it all.”

Lathrop founded Coffee Crafters in 2012 with the goal of providing easy-to-use, easy-to-install roasting equipment for newcomers building businesses.

Beyond its core Artisan model roasting machines and associated commercial equipment, the company expanded into green coffee sales in 2015, then brought manufacturing entirely in-house in 2021. Development of the Valenta series followed, culminating in the 2023 launch of the Valenta 7 machine, which offered the Hermetheus Co-Pilot automation plug-in as an optional add-on.

Scott founded Hermetheus Coffee in late 2020, selling coffees in farmers markets. The roasting company released its original Co-Pilot automation add-on in 2022 along with the Black Box kit for connecting any coffee roaster with K-Type thermocouples to Artisan software.

Earlier this year Hermetheus launched the Co-Pilot Pro with hardware improvements, Wi-Fi connectivity and other upgrades. The company also opened its first 1,000-square-foot brick-and-mortar coffee shop in the lobby of the new Olathe Downtown Public Library.

A flagship roastery cafe planned for this year was sidelined as focus shifted to the Coffee Crafters acquisition. Meanwhile, Hermetheus recently relocated its roasting operations into a 500-square-foot portion of an Olathe dry food packaging plant. The company’s fleet includes a Valenta 3, an Artisan XL and a Valenta 18, supplying growing demand from the cafe and whole-bean sales while providing testing ground for new ideas.

Scott said a 120-volt, 100-gram-capacity Valenta sample roaster is one such development project in the pipeline, as well as a larger but still entry-level/prosumer Valenta production roaster. New features will slowly be added to existing commercial machines as well.

“The entire Valenta line of roasters is a solid design,” said Scott. “My goal is to bring small but meaningful enhancements.”

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Howard Bryman Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.

Tags: acquisitions, Bryce Bull, Chris Hammock, Coffee Crafters, Coffee Crafters Artisan XL, Coffee Crafters Valenta 18, Coffee Crafters Valenta 3, Coffee Crafters Valenta 7, Hermetheus Black Box, Hermetheus Co-Pilot, Hermetheus Co-Pilot Pro, Hermetheus Coffee, Idaho, Jason Scott, Kansas, Ken Lathrop, manufacturers, Olathe, rebrand, Valenta series