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.

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.

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 nutritious diets: The inconvenience of preparing dried beans can discourage consumers from incorporating this nutritious food into their diets.
High household energy requirements: Long cooking times increase fuel consumption and the resources required for meal preparation.
High water requirements: Traditional bean preparation can place additional water demands on households.
Time burden for households: Lengthy preparation can reduce the time available for other productive or household activities, particularly for women.
Limited access to convenient food products: Consumers may have few practical alternatives to lengthy traditional bean preparation.
Limited value chain opportunities: Farmers and processors may have limited opportunities to increase value addition, marketability, and profit margins from common beans.

Solution

Improved access to nutritious diets: Pre-cooked beans make whole beans easier and faster to prepare, encouraging their consumption.
Reduced household resource burden: Lower cooking time and fuel requirements reduce the resources needed to prepare bean-based meals.
Time savings for women: Reduced preparation time can free women and other household members to engage in other productive activities.
Greater consumer convenience: Canned and frozen products provide practical alternatives to lengthy traditional preparation.
Stronger value addition: Processing creates opportunities for farmers, processors, and enterprises to capture more value from common beans.
Improved market opportunities: Pre-cooked beans can be marketed for local consumption and export, creating opportunities to strengthen marketability and profit margins.

Key points to design your program

Pre-Cooked Beans improve access to nutritious foods, reduce household cooking costs, and strengthen bean value chains through convenient, ready-to-use bean products. The technology can be integrated into food security, nutrition, agribusiness development, school feeding, and value chain development programs. Its adoption contributes to SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

To integrate this technology into your project, plan and budget for the following activities and prerequisites:

Assess bean production capacity, consumer demand, processing gaps, and market opportunities in target areas.
Facilitate access to bean processing equipment, packaging systems, cold storage facilities, and quality control technologies adapted to different processing scales.
Support training for processors, cooperatives, women’s groups, and youth enterprises on food processing, food safety, quality assurance, packaging, storage, and business management.
Invest in processing facilities, energy-efficient equipment, cold chain systems, and market linkage initiatives to improve product quality and commercial viability.
Promote the production and consumption of pre-cooked beans to improve nutrition, reduce cooking time, lower fuel consumption, and increase consumer convenience.
Support the participation of women and youth in bean processing and food businesses to create employment opportunities and strengthen local agribusiness development.
Establish partnerships with Bioversity International, CIAT, research institutes, processors, cooperatives, retailers, school feeding programs, and private sector actors to support scaling and sustainability.
Track key indicators such as quantity of pre-cooked beans produced, household cooking costs, bean consumption, jobs created, processor revenues, and farmer incomes.

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.