Food & Drink
4 January 2025
Food industry giants have today (24 Feb) announced they are joining the Bang in Some Beans campaign, which aims to double UK bean consumption by 2028.
The campaign, led by The Food Foundation and Veg Power and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, aims to promote beans to the nation as nutritional powerhouses that are a delicious source of protein, fibre and micronutrients.
Today leading catering companies and food businesses including Compass Group UK&I (the largest catering company in the UK), BaxterStorey and Angel Hill Food co, who are part of OCS, have announced pledges to increase their sale of beans. BaxterStorey has made the most ambitious pledge to double volume sales for all bean products over three years.
Beans are currently under-consumed in the UK, with the average person eating just one portion of beans a week, despite their increasingly lauded health benefits. However, this seems set to change.
Foodies, chefs and influencers are putting out recipes to celebrate Fibre February and fibremaxxing is trending on social media. At the same time, there’s increased public awareness that only 4% of UK adults are eating the amount of fibre needed to keep them healthy.
As a result, now is the perfect time for food businesses to announce their commitment to make beans more available and appealing to their customers.
‘British supermarkets play a huge role in feeding people. We’ve obviously done a lot of social media videos. We’ve racked up billions of views. We’ve sold over a million cookbooks. But the most important influence we can have on people’s day to day lives is via the supermarkets, by helping them put plants on their plates. Because not everyone buys books, not everyone is on social media, but most people go to the supermarket and most people get all of their sustenance from the supermarket. So that’s really important place to be, and an important place to be putting beans and plant-based food.’
IAN THEASBY
Co-founder of BOSH!
Businesses making their pledges today are joining those who signed up when the campaign launched in November 2025, including Lidl GB, Sainsbury’s, M&S and Ocado, Bidfood, ISS, Waitrose and Harvester.
19 ‘Keen Bean Pledgers’ are now signed up and a further six businesses promise to promote beans, including Samworth Bros, one of the largest manufacturers in the UK, La Bonte Catering, Honest Bean Co, Bird’s Eye, Co-op and Gosh!
‘We are absolutely delighted to see so many businesses continuing to get involved with the Bang In Some Beans campaign and our mission to get the UK eating more beans, pulses and other legumes. It really feels like the bean revolution is going from strength to strength at the moment – but there’s still a way to go before we see diets shifting in the UK. We’d love to see more businesses and organisations supporting the UK to bang in some beans by offering more bean options in stores, venues and restaurants across the country.’
REBECCA TOBI
Head of Food Business Transformation, the Food Foundation
News of the Keen Bean Pledgers coincides with the launch of the brand-new ‘Bang In Some Beans’ mini series, from the award-winning Food Foundation podcast.
This six-part series is hosted by best-selling food writer and chef Melissa Hemsley and will shed light on the many ways that beans, pulses and lentils are good for health and the planet, as well as being good news for stretched family budgets.
Over six episodes, the podcast will explore why there’s so much innovation in beans, why athletes are all over them and how they can even support our mental and hormonal health.
The first episode of the podcast explores what food businesses can do to promote healthy items such as beans to their customers. It covers Waitrose’s efforts to make beans more prominent in store while publishing a host of delicious beany recipes in its magazine.
The podcast also looks at the work Tesco has been doing with foodie influencers and My Green Pod contributors BOSH! in order to improve its plant-based range and disrupt the ready meal category.
Let beans shine with these plant-based recipes from BOSH! cooks Henry Firth and Ian Theasby.
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