Looking ahead
Roast Better Coffee, Together.
Our direction is clear: thoughtful machines, connected roasting workflows and a closer relationship between the people who build the equipment and the people who use it.
Genio Roasters · Est. 2010 · Introducing Guild
Sixteen years of craft.
A new chapter.
We began as Genio Roasters. Today, Guild is our new premium brand—bringing sixteen years of engineering experience into the next generation of coffee roasting.
The company behind Guild ↓2010Our story begins
16 yearsBuilding as Genio Roasters
42 countriesand counting
The next chapter of Genio
Experience built
into every machine.
A roasting machine is the product of thousands of engineering decisions. Sixteen years teaches you which ones matter.
Since Neil Maree founded Genio Roasters in 2010, Neil and his team have designed and built machines for people whose livelihoods depend on roasting coffee. Every generation has brought new lessons in control, construction and the realities of running a roastery.
Guild carries that experience forward. Our new premium brand brings the machine, its controls and the wider roasting workflow closer together.
Guild Roasters is the trading name of Genio Roasters (Pty) Ltd. The company behind your machine continues into this new chapter.
From the Genio archive
The story behind the machines.
A look at the people, engineering and craft behind Genio Roasters.
Our journey · 2010—2026
Built over time.
Always moving forward.
From an engineering project to a new generation of roaster systems. A first look at the milestones that shaped us.
2026
Introducing Guild.
Sixteen years after Genio began, we enter our next chapter with Guild, our new premium roaster brand. It brings our accumulated experience into an integrated approach to roasting equipment and software.
Milestone space · Guild launch and first installation photographs
Development
Rethinking the whole roasting system.
Work on the next generation brings mechanics, electronics and software into a shared design process. The ambition grows to include how coffee moves through a roastery, how production is recorded and how operators work with their machines.
Archive space · Design sketches, prototypes and testing
The Genio years
Learning alongside real roasteries.
The range develops, machines find homes around the world, and customer experience informs the next design. Hand assembly, roast control and practical engineering become defining parts of the Genio story.
Milestones to add · Model launches, first exports and customer stories
2010
Genio Roasters begins.
Neil founds Genio Roasters, turning that engineering interest into a company dedicated to designing and manufacturing coffee roasting equipment.
Archive space · The first workshop and early machines
The beginning
A roaster. An engineering project. An idea.
While studying Electronic and Computer Engineering at North-West University, Neil designed a coffee roaster for his final-year project. It brought coffee and engineering together—and laid the groundwork for what followed.
Archive space · The original project and first prototype
Why Guild exists
A wider view
of better roasting.
The next generation starts with the roast and considers the work around it.
Engineering you can work with.
Careful mechanical design, responsive controls and hands-on assembly. Decisions guided by how a machine behaves in everyday use.
A more connected roastery.
Guild brings roasting hardware and software into a common design, with a direction that connects roast control, production records, traceability and maintenance.
Built with purpose.
We take pride in the engineering. Seeing a customer put that engineering to work and build a successful roasting business gives it meaning.
An engineer at heart
Still asking how
to make it better.
Coffee is in Neil’s blood. His journey began as a barista competitor, then took him into technical judging and a two-year term on SCASA’s board of directors in the early 2020s.
As founder and lead engineer, Neil brings together the mechanics, electronics and software that make a roaster respond. Neil and his team have built hundreds of roasteries across more than 42 countries, learning directly from the people who use their machines every day.
That experience has given Neil a deep understanding of how customers interact with roasting equipment. Heat transfer is his speciality: understanding how energy reaches the coffee and how to give operators the control they need to get the best from each roast.
Neil also develops the software, working closely with his team and customers to bring advanced roast control systems into the roasting world. He is proud of the team behind him. Together, Neil and his team keep refining the details, testing ideas and building on what they learn.
Connect with Neil on LinkedIn ↗Your next chapter
Let’s talk about
your roastery.
Tell us what you roast, where you want to go and what needs to work better. We’ll start there.
Start a conversation ↗