Green beans
member
profile
Mike Hartkop, the mad scientist,
and the Helios 2 (below). Today, a
roof full of solar panels helps power
the coffee roaster and the business’s
energy needs (below center).
By Irene Middleman Thomas
DAVID HARTKOP, 30, a special-effects cinematographer with previous jobs in electronics, welding and metalwork, and his brother
Mike, 33, a coffee-loving businessman, might
not have seemed likely partners in a risky,
first-of-its-kind entrepreneurial endeavor.
But in 2004, after attending college, these
Costco members decided to join forces to
create a solar-heated coffee roaster.
“Mike was gung-ho about coffee roasting and I wanted to do something with
solar,” recalls David. “It was positive from
all angles: Solar roasting makes us different
Solar Roast Coffee
harnesses the
power of the sun
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enough to launch SolarRoast.com that summer and begin selling the coffee online. The
next year, the brothers built the Helios 2,
using glass mirrors and a new design that
roasted more than 2 pounds at a time. Meanwhile, word was spreading about Solar Roast
Coffee, thanks to marketing and public relations efforts.
member profile
Business: Solar Roast Coffee
Founders: Mike and David Hartkop
Members at: Colorado Springs
Address: 226 N. Main St.
Pueblo, CO 81003
Contact at: (719) 544-2008; info@solar
roast.com;
www.solarroast.com
Comment about Costco: “When we
started in Oregon, Costco was a great
place for us to buy coffee filters and
supplies for the events that allowed us
to really launch the business. Our only
question is, how long will it be before
Pueblo sees a Costco of its own?”
—Mike Hartkop
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from all other roasters, and we are using
renewable energy.”
Indeed, in just eight years the two have
developed a successful alternative-energy
business, selling some 50,000 pounds of
solar-roasted coffee per year in six states and
online. They are passionate about their prod-
uct and their mission. “Making this business
run sustainably is our lives,” says David. “We
work 10 to 14 hours a day, five to seven days
a week, and we’re always looking for ways to
make it even better.”
The initial innovation
The brothers constructed their first solar
coffee roaster in the backyard of their parents’
Oregon home, out of an old satellite dish, 100
plastic mirrors to create heat and—get this—a
broccoli strainer, which was the roasting drum.
“I was taking physics classes, and had
taught myself all sorts of practical and theo-
retical things about heat, light and engineer-
ing,” says David. “I also learned to weld and
fabricate in steel.”
The device, dubbed the Helios 1 (named
for the Greek god of the sun), roasted only 1
pound of coffee at a time, but that was
AUGUST 2012 ;e Costco Connection 29
For solar power, you need sun
By the next year, Mike and David had
realized that Oregon’s wet weather was not
conducive to a business that depends on
solar energy. “Demand for coffee peaks right
about the time when the weather won’t cooperate, from about September through April,”
says Mike.
After much research, the two decided
upon Pueblo, Colorado, a small, friendly
city about two hours south of Denver with
sunlight, a university, an arts scene and
booming gastronomy.
At first, the community was not accepting when the brothers set up the first solar
roaster outside town. “They thought we were
setting up a cell tower or something ‘unusual,’
so they demanded the county make us stop,”
David recalls. “We were tied up with the
county zoning department for five months. It
took $1,000 in permits and a public hearing,
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