Pre-Cooked Beans for Consumer Convenience

Advanced approach for quick, convenient, and delicious bean

Pre-cooked whole beans are available in dried, canned, and frozen forms, and can be prepared in a short amount of time, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes. This saves a significant amount of cooking time, eliminating the need for soaking and reducing fuel usage. The process of making pre-cooked beans involves sorting, washing, and sizing, followed by passing air and water over the food product. The beans are then blanched at 95°C for 3 minutes, soaked at 45°C for 120 minutes, sterilized and cooked at 97°C for another 120 minutes, and finally dried at room temperature for approximately 24 hours. After this process, the beans are packaged and frozen. Canned beans undergo a similar procedure of soaking, blanching, and cooking, followed by the addition of brine, cooling, canning, and labeling. Both pre-cooked frozen and canned beans can be marketed for both local consumption and export markets.

This technology is TAAT1 validated.

7•7

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 7/9; level of use 7/9

Project adoption1

Technology integrated in the ENSURE project.

See project details ›

1,500 USD

Per mall electric cooker system for making pre-cooked beans with a capacity of 100 liter

20,000 USD

Per large hot water boiler powered with petrol or natural gas with a capacity of 0.5 ton per hour

IP

Unknown

Problem

Limited product differentiation: Conventional dried beans provide processors with fewer opportunities to offer convenient ready-to-prepare products.
Limited value addition: Selling beans in their traditional dried form can restrict opportunities to capture additional value through processing.
Weak consumer convenience: Long preparation times can reduce the attractiveness of conventional beans for consumers seeking quick food options.
Limited market opportunities: Traditional products may constrain processors’ ability to access higher-value consumer markets.
Low profit margins: Limited value addition and market differentiation can constrain profitability for actors in the common bean value chain.
Difficulty responding to changing demand: Consumers increasingly need convenient food products that reduce preparation time and household cooking requirements.

Solution

Product diversification: Processors can transform common beans into convenient canned or frozen products, creating differentiated products for consumers.
Greater value addition: Pre-cooking and preservation allow businesses to move beyond conventional dried beans and capture additional value through processing.
Improved consumer appeal: Convenient products respond to consumers looking for foods that require less preparation time.
Access to higher-value markets: Pre-cooked beans can be marketed in local and export markets, expanding opportunities for processors.
Improved profitability potential: The technology can increase marketability and profit margins for processors and other value chain actors.
Flexible processing options: Businesses can produce either frozen or canned pre-cooked beans according to their target market and processing model. The technology is associated with an internal rate of return of 32% to 53%, according to the e-catalog.

Key points to design your business plan

For processors

Making this technology enhances consumer appeal, increases market opportunities, improves profitability, environmental sustainability, and gender empowerment.

In order to make this venture successful, you need to identify reliable suppliers for manufacturing machines and obtaining the necessary raw materials such as the commodity and the package material.

Your potential customers are : wholesale distributors of pre-cooked beans to supermarkets, and to development projects, government agencies, and NGOs.

Building strong partnerships with wholesale distributor networks and suppliers of machinery and raw materials is key to the success of your business.

As for the cost structure, a small electric cooker system for making pre-cooked beans with a capacity of 100 liters is sold at US $1,500, whereas a large hot water boiler powered with petrol or natural gas with a capacity of 0.5 ton per hour costs US $20,000.

For Resellers

Selling this technology not only provides versatility and convenience, making it a valuable addition to any kitchen but also fosters closer engagement with users while simultaneously enhancing health and wellbeing on a global scale.

To successfully navigate this market, you need to know where to source precooked beans in bulk, identify efficient transportation methods, and explore suitable storage facilities.

Your potential customer base is: small, local retailers, development projects, producers, and producer cooperatives or associations.

For Users

Using this technology offers convenience, time, energy and water savings, and nutritional benefits, making meal preparation easier and more efficient.

As key partners you need small, local retailers and supermarket

You need to estimate the profit realized with the use of this practice.

Adults 18 and over: Positive high

The poor: Positive medium

Under 18: Positive medium

Women: Positive high

Climate adaptability: Moderately adaptable

Farmer climate change readiness: Moderate improvement

Carbon footprint: Much less carbon released

Environmental health: Greatly improves environmental health

Soil quality: Does not affect soil health and fertility

Water use: A bit less water used

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology's development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology's readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 7 out of 9

Semi-controlled environment: prototype

Level of use 7 out of 9

Common use by projects NOT connected to technology provider

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Project	Countries	Beneficiaries	Budget (USD) & duration	Key figures
ENSURE Enabling Environments for Sustainable Regional Agriculture Extension	Kenya Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo South Sudan Uganda Tanzania	Direct: 3,000,000	13.14 million 2024–2027	149,940 farmers trained 9,996 Training 2→3.5 tons/ha cereals production expected 350 agent trained

Project

Countries

Beneficiaries

Budget (USD) & duration

Key figures

ENSURE
Enabling Environments for Sustainable Regional Agriculture Extension

Kenya
Rwanda
Burundi
Democratic Republic of the Congo
South Sudan
Uganda
Tanzania

Direct: 3,000,000

13.14 million

2024–2027

149,940 farmers trained
9,996 Training
2→3.5 tons/ha cereals production expected
350 agent trained

Figures in italic are from project plans and may change during implementation.

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Benin	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Burundi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Cameroon	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Central African Republic	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Côte d’Ivoire	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Democratic Republic of the Congo	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Gabon	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Ghana	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Kenya	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Malawi	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Mozambique	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Nigeria	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Rwanda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Senegal	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Sierra Leone	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
South Sudan	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Tanzania	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Uganda	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted
Zambia	–No ongoing testing	Tested	Adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - warm	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - warm	Tropic - cool
Arid
Semiarid
Subhumid
Humid

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 8: decent work and economic growth

Goal 12: responsible production and consumption

Goal 2: zero hunger

Goal 5: gender equality

Sorting, Washing, and Sizing: The process begins with sorting, washing, and sizing the beans. Air and water are used to pass over the food product to remove impurities.
Blanching: The sorted and cleaned beans are subjected to blanching at 95°C for 3 minutes. This step helps in preserving the quality of the beans.
Soaking: After blanching, the beans are soaked at 45°C for 120 minutes. This process hydrates the beans and prepares them for further cooking.
Sterilization and Cooking: The hydrated beans are then subjected to sterilization and cooking at 97°C for 120 minutes. This ensures that the beans are fully cooked and ready for consumption.
Drying: Following the cooking process, the beans are dried at room temperature for approximately 24 hours. This step helps in removing excess moisture and preparing the beans for packaging.
Packaging and Freezing (for frozen products) or Canning (for canned products): The processed beans are then packaged and either frozen or canned, depending on the preservation method chosen.