- By Linsey Smith
- Rural Affairs Correspondent, BBC Look North
Image source, MartinRLee/Getty
The haricot beans used by the major British baked bean brands are currently imported from the US, Canada, Ethiopia and China
Farmers and scientists say they are optimistic that a commercial crop of beans sown in Lincolnshire will mark the start of home-grown beans-on-toast.
Until now, it has been impossible for farmers to grow the haricot variety used for baked beans in the UK because they are incompatible with the climate.
But scientists have developed a seed they hope will allow the plants to thrive after a 12-year project.
“It’s crazy shipping a bean halfway around the world,” Prof Tim Lang said.
Thousands of tonnes of dried haricot beans are imported to the UK each week by the major brands, with legumes coming from the US, Canada, Ethiopia and China.
“It’s the first commercial scale planting of a variety of haricot beans that could end up in a can on everybody’s supper table,” said Andrew Ward, the farmer growing the beans.
“At the moment we don’t have any beans that are grown here that are suitable for baked beans, our climate isn’t right for producing this type of bean.”
The seeds sown in Lincolnshire mark the latest phase of the research by the University of Warwick
Scientists at the University of Warwick developed seeds which can be sown in early May and harvested as a dry grain before mid-September, matching the UK’s warmer months.
Prof Eric Holub, from the university’s Life Sciences department, said: “The work that I have been involved with started in 2011, but actually it was inherited material that had been used here on the university farm in the 1970s and 80s.
“It was put into storage, and it was 2011 that I realised that there was some valuable material and I started reviving it.”
A smaller scale trial in 2022 failed due to the summer heatwave, with hopes this current crop being grown in Leadenham near Lincoln will be ready to harvest in late August.
“We’ve seen empty supermarket shelves over the last few months”, said Andrew Ward, an arable farmer.
“That’s down to the problem that we don’t grow enough of our food, ourselves, here.”
Farmer Andrew Ward says being able to produce the beans locally rather than shipping them across the globe would be “fantastic for the environment”
Some health food brands have attempted to market British-grown fava beans as ‘baked beans’, but they have lacked mass appeal due to the different in taste to haricots.
Prof Lang from City, University of London, said it is “very important” that the project succeeds.
“It has been a desperate desire of the British food industry and baked bean manufacturers to have a British baked bean for decades,” he said.
“When I started in food policy 40 years ago, people were wanting this.”
“It’s crazy shipping a little bean halfway round the world just to put it in a tin can with some tomato sauce.” he added.