About CBR/HBR Unlocking the Full Potential of Industrial Hemp with the Community BioRefinery Platform
The Hemp-BioRefinery is the industrial-hemp specialized division of the proven Community BioRefinery (CBR) platform. Using the same zero-waste, full-molecule recovery technology successfully demonstrated on other organic feedstocks, HBR processes the entire industrial hemp plant — from root to bud — into multiple high-value products, including proteins, oils, fibers, sugars, biofuels, bioplastics, organic fertilizer, and the plant’s rich spectrum of embedded phytochemicals and nutraceuticals. Nothing is wasted.
Community BioRefineries, LLC (CBR)
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Community BioRefineries stands as one of the oldest privately held biofuels research-and-development organizations in the United States. For more than four decades the company has refined a true biorefinery model that extracts every valuable fraction from renewable plant material—proteins, oils, starches, sugars, fibers, residual biomass, and the valuable phytochemicals and nutraceuticals naturally present in industrial hemp – then converts the remaining stream into advanced biofuels, green electricity, bioplastics, nutraceuticals, and organic fertilizers. The result is a zero-waste, no-heat, no-chemical, carbon-neutral circular process that simultaneously feeds people, powers communities, and regenerates rural economies through complete utilization of the industrial hemp plant.
Mission
CBR’s mission is to commercialize its proprietary, vertically integrated technologies by constructing and operating networks of decentralized Community BioRefineries throughout the United States and, where legally permitted, internationally. Each facility processes the entire industrial hemp plant—from root to bud—first recovering high-value food and nutraceutical fractions (including BCAA proteins, high-oleic oils, and the plant’s native phytochemicals and nutraceuticals), then converting the residual stream into true petroleum-free biofuels (principally bio-butanol), green electrical power via the CBR CORE Mini AI Support Hub, bioplastics, and other biobased products. By locating facilities near the farms that supply industrial hemp, CBR eliminates long-haul transportation of both feedstock and finished goods, reduces costs for local consumers, creates hundreds of well-paying jobs per site, and delivers genuine energy independence to the communities it serves.
Vision
CBR envisions a distributed web of economically self-sustaining, totally green Community BioRefineries that transform local agricultural abundance – especially industrial hemp – into food security, energy security, and economic vitality. In this future every participating community possesses its own “green oil well” and “green power plant” – facilities that cannot be disrupted by distant geopolitics or supply-chain shocks – while farmers capture a greater share of the value created from the industrial hemp crops they grow, including the high-value phytochemicals and nutraceuticals embedded in the whole plant.
Connection to Community BioRefinery (CBR)
The name itself defines the enterprise. “Community” signals that each biorefinery is scaled and sited for local benefit rather than distant corporate extraction. “BioRefinery” affirms the USDA definition of a true biorefinery: a facility that recovers multiple products from multiple plants in the same facility to create many useful products (CBR’s specialty), rather than destroying food-grade material just to produce a single biofuel.
CBR therefore stands in deliberate contrast to conventional ethanol plants that cook grain solely for one alcohol and discard or undervalue the remainder. The CBR process first isolates premium plant-protein isolates, high-oleic oils, resistant starches, fibers, and the full spectrum of phytochemicals and nutraceuticals naturally present in industrial hemp; only then does the residual stream enter advanced fermentation systems that yield bio-butanol, bio-acetone, bio-hydrogen, and lignin-derived energy carriers. This sequence resolves the long-standing “food-versus-fuel” debate by making food, nutraceuticals, and fuel complementary rather than competitive outputs of the same acre of industrial hemp.
History and 1938 Inspiration
The intellectual roots of the modern biorefinery reach back to the chemurgy movement of the 1930s. Chemurgists (chemists of the day) argued that American agriculture could supply not only food but also the industrial raw materials then imported from abroad. Their advocacy culminated in 1938 when the U.S. Department of Agriculture established four regional research laboratories dedicated to the industrial utilization of surplus crops – a vision that included the full potential of industrial hemp as a “New Billion-Dollar Crop.” Those laboratories, together with parallel work at land-grant universities, laid the scientific foundation for converting agricultural biomass into chemicals, plastics, and fuels.
World War II provided the first large-scale proof of concept. When Axis oil embargoes threatened the British Royal Air Force, scientists fermented biobutanol from agricultural substrates and blended it into aviation fuel. The higher energy density and lower hygroscopicity of butanol helped keep Spitfires and Hurricanes aloft during the Battle of Britain. After the war, cheap petroleum again flooded the market and the technology was shelved.
The oil crises of the 1970s revived interest. CBR’s late founder – the original patent holder and trademark registrant of biodiesel produced entirely by fermentation—recognized both the limitations of ethanol and the superior properties of butanol. Beginning in the early 1980s the company and its predecessors sponsored the first pilot-scale production of biobutanol as a fuel since World War II, working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and five major universities. Collaborators included Dr. Ed Phares, one of the original Manhattan Project scientists, who came out of retirement to advance the fermentation systems. Over subsequent decades more than sixteen pilot plants were operated and more than $20 million (plus millions more via substantial in-kind contributions) was invested to perfect the integrated process now deployed by Community BioRefineries for complete utilization of industrial hemp and its embedded phytochemicals and nutraceuticals.
Thus the 1938 USDA laboratories, the wartime demonstration of biobutanol, and the post-embargo determination of CBR’s founders form a continuous arc of American innovation that the company now brings to commercial scale through the Hemp-BioRefinery.
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Core Values
Sustainability Every molecule of the industrial hemp plant is assigned a productive fate — including its valuable phytochemicals and nutraceuticals. Process water is recycled, residual solids become organic fertilizer or aquaculture feed, and the energy required to run the plant is generated on-site from the same biomass. The result is a closed-loop system with no waste streams, no process heat, and no chemical reagents.
Farmer Empowerment CBR facilities are deliberately sized and sited so that local industrial hemp growers—especially cooperative members—become both preferred suppliers and equity participants. Priority offtake contracts, revenue-sharing on finished products (including high-value phytochemical extracts), and cost-of-production organic fertilizer return value directly to the farm gate. The model is designed to raise net farm income while reducing chemical input costs and transportation expenses.
Innovation CBR treats the biorefinery as a three-dimensional platform rather than a single-product factory. Continuous improvement in fermentation (ABE and Zymobec Spectrum XTTM systems), protein isolation, phytochemical recovery, AI-optimized process control (CBR CORE AI Support Hub), and modular plant design keeps the technology at the frontier of biobased manufacturing. The same philosophy that once produced the first fermentation biodiesel now yields bio-butanol suitable for sustainable aviation fuel, high-purity plant-protein isolates, full-spectrum phytochemicals and nutraceuticals from industrial hemp, and distributed green power.
These three values – sustainability, farmer empowerment, and relentless technical innovation—are not aspirational statements; they are the operating criteria against which every process decision and partnership is measured.
Leadership Team
CBR is led by a complementary pair of executives whose combined experience spans military strategic leadership, large-scale capital formation, food science and technology, and commercial fermentation. Together they have shepherded the technology through decades of laboratory, pilot, and pre-commercial development while maintaining focus on practical, community-scale deployment of industrial hemp processing.
Scott Hewitt – CEO & President / COO
Scott Hewitt brings decades of leadership, investor relations, and operational expertise to CBR. A key figure in the evolution of the technology since 2005, he previously helped raise significant capital for predecessor R&D entities.
Prior to Mr. Hewitt’s affiliation with Community BioRefineries, he served as a senior Strategic Intelligence Operations advisor to Special Operations forces in Afghanistan in response to a personal request from the Secretary of the Army’s Director of Intelligence. He also has served as a Registered Principal and Executive Investment Advisor providing financial advisory services to over 1500 active and retired military clients with combined portfolios of well over $320 million. Prior to that, he concluded a successful military career with the US Army as an Intelligence Operations Officer, beginning as an enlisted Analyst and concluding as a field grade officer. His activities included command and staff positions at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, as well as service with the National Command Authority; interface with Congressional Intelligence Committees and the White House Cabinet. He served on two Command tours and service as a staff officer at brigade, division, corps, Joint, and national levels; he was a principal instructor at the Army Intelligence School, and as a Special Security Officer on GEN Colin Powell’s Special Staff while serving as the Commander of V (US) Corps. Hewitt was sought out to become the ‘Defense Intelligence Oversight Officer for the Counterdrug Support Mission’.
Mr. Hewitt served in a civilian capacity in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Hewitt’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science Degree in Food Science and Technology with Minors in Microbiology and Business Management (1977) from Iowa State University; with the Defense Intelligence College at Langley, VA where he worked toward a Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence (1991); and, US Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Leavenworth, KS at the US Army Command and General Staff College, (1991). Mr. Hewitt is also the founder and President/Director of the Protein Therapeutics Foundation. With his degrees in Food Science and Technology, Business Management from Iowa State University, and with military leadership training from the Army’s Command and General Staff College, Scott has been instrumental in streamlining operations, compliance, and strategic direction. His founding of the Protein Therapeutics Foundation, focused on applications of pure plant proteins for treating sarcopenia – the progressive, generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength that primarily occurs with aging.
Vincent R. James, Ph.D. (A.B.D.) – CTO; Director, Hemp BioRefinery Division
Vincent James is a Simple Biochemist, fermentation scientist, and zymologist with deep expertise in organic chemistry, organic fermentation, brewing sciences, and bioprocessing. Zymology — the scientific study of fermentation processes and the biochemical transformations carried out by microorganisms — forms the foundation of his work. This discipline encompasses the optimization of microbial cultures, enzyme systems, and metabolic pathways to efficiently convert sugars and other substrates into valuable products such as alcohols, acids, hydrogen, and biopolymers, while also enabling the recovery of industrial hemp’s valuable phytochemicals and nutraceuticals.
Mr. James holds a master’s degree from San Francisco State University with postgraduate work at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. Vincent has designed, commissioned, and developed microbreweries across the U.S. and brings extensive R&D experience in fermentation, process optimization, and sustainable biotechnology. As CTO and Director of the Hemp BioRefinery Division, he leads technical innovation for Community BioRefineries operations and continues to drive advancements in feedstock processing of the whole industrial hemp plant, organic fermentation systems, and co-product valorization — including the isolation of phytochemicals and nutraceuticals.
As a trained brewer, he worked for Brewers Research and Development where he was involved in all aspects of technical design, brewing production, fermentation and purchasing management where he designed, commissioned, and developed micro brewing projects. As Managing Director at California Beer Works, he was responsible for strategic planning, technical/operations management and production activities; as CEO of California Beer Works, his main responsibility was handling investments by private equity partners. With over 15 years in the brewing and distilling industry as a senior brewing leader, with extensive experience in North America and Asia, his focus in various roles progressing from Brewer, Operations Manager, General Management and CEO has been an asset for several major micro brewing companies. His strengths embrace the business spectrum of customer commitment, profit focus, quality, innovation and strategic development.
In addition to his in-depth background in Operations and General Management, Mr. James is also the President/Director of the Food For Life Foundation, a non-profit entity focused on reducing or eliminating the muscle wasting diseases suffered by both HIV and cancer treatment patients as side effects of those treatments.
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Under this leadership, CBR and its Hemp-BioRefinery Division continue to convert long-proven science into practical, community-owned infrastructure that fully utilizes the industrial hemp plant — recovering every molecule, including its embedded phytochemicals and nutraceuticals — to feed people, power economies, and leave no molecule behind.
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Investments involve risk of loss of principal. The material on this website is for informational purposes only. Only accredited investors who have reviewed the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM), Business Plan, and completed proper vetting may participate. See full details in the PPM.