Beans Mean More: A Blueprint for Basket-Level Change
By Ali Morpeth (RNutr) + Lucy Skrine Touche (RD)
Affordable, fibre-rich, low-impact, and commercially ripe for growth, beans illustrate how focusing on overlooked categories can drive the triple win-healthier diets, lower emissions, and stronger business resilience.
The global food system is under pressure. Diet-related disease is rising and now costs the UK £67.5bn annually, biodiversity is declining, food prices are squeezing households and farmers' livelihoods are being threatened by extreme weather. Meeting these challenges means moving beyond single-product swaps to solutions that can be scaled. We need to shift whole baskets towards patterns that are better for people and the planet, while driving the commercial growth that makes them stick.
So Where do Beans Come In?
As a case study, they’re powerful. Long celebrated across global cuisines, they’ve often been overlooked in the UK. That’s starting to change. Innovation, growing health awareness, and shifting consumer behaviour are reframing beans as a category with huge potential.
Closing the Health Gap
In the UK fewer than 1% of consumers meet Eatwell guide recommendations. Adults average just 3.5 of the recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day, and 96% of adults and children miss their fibre targets. Beans which are rich in protein, fibre, iron, folate, and magnesium, help close both gaps. They count as one of your five-a-day and offer affordable, versatile nutrition.
Cultural momentum is also shifting. “Fibre maxxing” is trending on TikTok fuelling public interest in health, retailers are investing in gut-health ranges, and people are seeking foods that connect wellness with everyday diets. Beans deliver all this at low cost.
A Crop That Gives Back
The food system accounts for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike other foods, when beans grow they team up with soil bacteria to turn nitrogen from the air into food plants can use—building healthier soils, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers, and cutting emissions. They also require significantly less water to grow than most animal proteins, making them well-suited to a future where water will be under pressure.
Farmers are taking note, trialling new varieties that build soil health, improve biodiversity, and support resilient rotations. More beans grown locally and eaten by people is a direct lever for food security—firmly at the top of the government agenda.
A Market Ready To Grow
The UK plant-based alternatives market is worth almost £900M, but sales of whole beans remain tiny—just 30g of canned beans or pulses per person per week at last count (the equivalent of about 15 chickpeas or a couple of spoonfuls of lentils). This leaves huge headroom for growth.
Challenger brands are seizing the moment. The jarred bean market grew by £5.7M in 2024, with £4.8M of that down to Bold Bean Co’s premium positioning. Established players like Heinz and Merchant Gourmet are following suit with new bean-based lines. Innovation and desirability are starting to reframe the category.
Many of these recommendations are the same as those outlined in the World Health Organisation Nutrient Promotion Profile Model. Without better, clearer and measurable targets for each recommendation, it is unclear how these changes will be monitored or measured.
Barriers and Opportunities
However, lack of cultural familiarity and procurement haven’t mainstreamed beans yet. In the UK, they feature in only one of the top 10 home-cooked meals. As Mat Goff of ARK Agency noted, the challenge is to turn a “boring aisle” into an exciting one—helping people feel confident adding beans into everyday dishes, and connecting them to health, fibre, protein, and sustainability so they become part of both the cultural conversation and everyday eating.
Some are taking that challenge head on:
“Our campaign to get the UK eating more beans will not only support improvements in dietary health but also benefit the planet while being kinder on food budgets. But we need to go beyond communicating health or environmental benefits—making more of beans’ taste, versatility, affordability and convenience, tied in with creative ideas and fun.”
Opportunities are opening fast. EAT-Lancet 2.0, national dietary targets, and foodservice commitments are all pushing beans forward. BaxterStorey, a major UK foodservice provider, introduced bean-based dishes across its operations and saw a 19.6% increase in pulse spend in the first year.
“At BaxterStorey, we proudly signed the Beans is How Pledge in 2023 and ignited a movement across our business with the brilliant support of our chef partner, Bettina. Beans have become a food hero in our Sustainable Nutrition education programmes, inspiring our teams with their incredible benefits for both people and the planet. The results have been transformational.”
What Beans Teach Us About Food System Transformation
For businesses, NGOs, and policymakers, beans are a health, commercial and strategic priority.
For businesses: beans offer a low-hanging fruit to hit Scope 3, protein diversification, and fibre targets, while tapping into a £900M+ plant-based market.
For NGOs: beans are a relatable entry point to engage citizens in dietary change and connect climate with health.
For policymakers: beans are a test case for procurement reform, subsidy realignment, and dietary guidelines that integrate sustainability.
Beans are a test of intent for leadership teams. If we can scale a category this affordable, low-impact, and health-aligned, it proves what’s possible with more complex shifts.
At Planeatry Alliance…
…we help partners turn single-category wins into basket-level transformation—connecting health, climate, and commercial opportunity. Beans show us one way forward. The next step is making them the beginning, not the exception.
Explore our whitepaper to see how to use these insights to deliver basket-level change.
