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 ›

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

Problem

Limited access to convenient nutritious foods: Consumers may have difficulty incorporating nutritious beans into their diets because traditional preparation is time consuming.
High household cooking burden: Long cooking times place additional demands on household time and resources.
High energy consumption: Traditional preparation requires substantial fuel, increasing household cooking costs and energy use.
High water requirements: Bean preparation requires significant quantities of water, creating additional constraints for households.
Limited food product diversification: Conventional bean consumption provides fewer convenient processed options for consumers.
Limited development of higher-value bean markets: Constraints in processing and product diversification can limit opportunities to strengthen the common bean value chain.

Solution

Improved access to nutritious foods: Pre-cooked beans make nutritious whole beans more convenient and accessible to consumers.
Reduced household cooking burden: Shorter preparation times reduce the time required to prepare bean-based meals.
Lower household energy consumption: The technology can reduce cooking costs by up to 90%, according to the e-catalog.
Reduced water and fuel requirements: Pre-cooking decreases the resources required for household preparation.
Greater food product diversification: Canned and frozen beans provide additional convenient formats for bean consumption.
Stronger common bean value chain: Development of processed bean products creates opportunities for farmers, processors, community enterprises, and food manufacturers to capture greater value.

Key points to design your project

This technology aims to reduce the long cooking time, high energy, and water requirements associated with dried common beans, making them more appealing to consumers. It benefits both consumers and farmers. By freeing up time for women, reducing energy consumption, and contributing to food security and responsible consumption, It has positive impacts on gender empowerment, climate, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This technology can be incorporated into nutrition projects as an alternative solution to meats and other protein sources, while also presenting an opportunity for food processors and supermarkets.

To integrate this technology into your project, create a list of project activities and prerequisites, including:

Awareness raising with farmers, agri-food companies and investors about the business opportunities created by the technology,
Formulating appropriate product standards, packaging sizes and prices based on consumer demand,
Identifying profitable, durable and equitable models for production and marketing of pre-cooked beans,
Organizing reliable supply of beans by contracting nucleus farms and out grower networks,
Installing energy-efficient and labor-saving equipment to minimize production costs, and
Training operators and workers on safety and quality adherence throughout the process.

- Estimate the quantity of precooked beans needed for your project.

As the technology is available in west, central and east-Africa, include the delivery cost to the project site and account for import clearance and duties if relevant.

Communication support for the technology should be developed (flyers, videos, radio broadcasts, etc.)

For better optimization of this technology, it is recommended to associate this technology with Biofortified Beans for Improved Nutrition

To implement the technology in your country, you could collaborate with Food processor companies.

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

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.