We won’t spoil your morning porridge by completing the playground rhyme in its entirety, but suffice it to say that beans are having their moment in the sun. This week, bean enthusiasts from across the worlds of academia, civil society and business came together in London to officially kick-start a three-year programme to double UK consumption by 2028.
The ‘Bang in some beans’ project is the brainchild of charities The Food Foundation and Veg Power. A key element involves increasing their supply and visibility in retail and out of home settings so people have easy access to beans. Businesses are being asked to make a sales-based commitment to get more beans on the menu or in the aisles and report on their progress. Strategies to increase consumption include positioning beans to make them visible as an alternative to other protein sources, and redirecting promotional and marketing spend away from other protein categories.
There’s a big opportunity for the foodservice and hospitality sector in particular to step up to the plate. A Bean Facts report, published this week by The Food Foundation, showed how 95% of the beans currently consumed in the UK are eaten at home.
The UK Government, meanwhile, is being urged to play its part by helping farmers increase bean production, and strengthening public procurement rules for schools, hospitals, prisons, and other public spaces to ensure more beans are served.
Beans are well aligned with the emerging trend for ‘fibremaxxing’ whereby social media influencers demonstrate how to cram meals full of fibre-rich ingredients. A portion of beans contains 100% more fibre than a chicken breast, according to the Bean Facts report, and 2.5 times more than two slices of white bread. They also cost on average 4.5 times less than other plant-based meat alternatives.
The current momentum behind beans is undeniable, but it might not be unstoppable. A new report by Mintel suggests businesses should be careful not to rely on the ‘maxxing’ trend where fibre is concerned, and instead predicts that diversity will be the watchword for 2026. “Consumers will be hungry to expand their diets beyond just the benefits of protein and fibre,” the market research company said as it announced its 2026 food and drink predictions. “The cultural principle of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), will be applied to nutrition, leading to a desire for ‘DEI-ts’ that defy the ‘comfort’ of eating the same foods.”
One product category that could feel the heat from a bean bonanza is meat. Intensive meat production practices have put under the spotlight by a group of food and drink sector whistle-blowers, who returned this week to deliver a second broadside against their boardroom overlords in the space of a year. Having warned back in April of a sector-wide failure to tackle a series of interconnected crises – from extreme weather events to water scarcity – the group has now published an ‘Insiders’ guide to meat and dairy’, that exposes how current commercial strategies in the UK’s meat and dairy industry are undermining environmental, health and welfare commitments.
Although they state their belief that meat and dairy has a role to play in the economy and UK food security, and can be consumed as part of a balanced diet, they call for an “urgent conversation about the type, quality and quantity of meat and dairy we consume as a society, and the impact this is having on UK’s food security, health outcomes, animal welfare standards and environmental sustainability”. Among a number of specific issues that need to be addressed, the group points to increased meat sales, with a large proportion produced to lower welfare standards, and from processed meat; poorer health outcomes in many homes because of over-consumption of meat and dairy products, particularly those that are of lower quality and more highly processed; and a failure to move towards meaningfully regenerative agricultural practice at scale.
“There are no silver bullets but there are countless decisions that could be taken differently”, both through “coordinated collective action” and “individual corporate choice”, writes the group.
The release of the guide coincides with the beginning of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, which itself comes at a time when global climate action has stalled and modelling shows the world remains on track for up to 2.5°C of heating. Next Friday’s Footprint news will feature updates from the summit, which is due to conclude on November 21st.
Elsewhere this week:
