Scots ‘superbeans’ created by late enthusiast set to hit supermarkets
THEY arrived in a small margarine tub, just a few little beans lovingly nurtured by a lifelong vegetarian in his garden at home.
The late Henry Taylor was retired and in the early stages of dementia, but that had not dulled his determination to cultivate a new variety of bean – one that would be ideal to grow in a Scottish climate, with a host of environmental benefits and the bonus of being proteinpacked and tasty.
Having experimented and cultivated his crop for 30 years, he took his tub of beans to Scotland’s crop research institute to see what they thought. The result, it has transpired, has become something of a bean revolution.
For far from humble beans, Mr Taylor’s variety has been revealed as a Scottish “super” bean, harbouring a range of special qualities which could revolutionise crop growing and bring a range of environmental benefits – from curbing the use of fertilisers on farmers’ fields, to cutting carbon emissions.
In addition, they are small and with just the right qualities when cooked to make them perfectly palatable, potentially helping to meet soaring demand for climate-friendly vegan food and an ideal Scottish homegrown alternative to one of the nation’s staples, baked beans.
Plans are now under way for the first cans of Henry’s Scottish Beans to be cooked, canned and sold as the nation’s first homegrown baked beans.
Although UK consumers get through more than two million cans of baked beans every day, a lack of suitable bean varieties adapted to the UK climate, means not a single bean eaten is grown here.
Instead, the baked beans that land on the nation’s plates are imported, mostly from Canada.
Cultivating the right bean would not only open the floodgates to a host of beanrelated food products, but it would also help cut food miles, reduce emissions, and help farmers introduce a nitrogen-fixing legume in their crop rotations, benefiting the soil and curbing fertiliser use.
Such a bean feast was not quite what Dr Pete Iannetta, a plant biologist and ecologist based at The James Hutton Institute in Dundee expected when he received a call asking him to meet a gentleman in reception who was carrying a margarine tub filled with beans.
“He said he wanted to talk to the ‘bean man’,” he recalled. “Henry said he had developed this bean that ripened in the
same timeframe as a pea, which was unusual for a faba bean. I thought that was a nice thought some people have been trying to do that for quite a while. So I told him, ‘leave them with me’.”
Aware that Mr Taylor had once worked as a field trials officer for a forerunner of the institute, Dr Iannetta took the tub and planted the beans. Nature took its course and soon – far sooner than might be expected from a typical crop of faba or broad beans – Mr Taylor’s beanstalk sprouted.
And Dr Iannetta soon realised the beans, gifted to the James
Hutton
Institute by Mr Taylor in 2017 and which he dubbed simply “Scottish Beans”, are, if not exactly magic beans, certainly far from the average. “Henry wanted the bean to be an early ripening bean, because normally it’s very difficult to get a faba bean out of the ground in time in Scotland,” he explained. “They are relatively big plants that grow quite tall, but they generally don’t ripen until early September. That means some farmers can’t harvest them. They aren’t wasted, they still provide a good manure, but they are a challenge.”
Mr Taylor’s dwarf faba beans are smaller and have been cultivated to ripen early, meaning one crop can be harvested allowing growers to use the nitrogen-rich residue in the soil left behind to quickly sow a second crop.
While common haricot beans used for canned baked beans need around 50kg of nitrogen per hectare, Henry’s Scottish Beans don’t need any.
Dr Iannetta also found the variety grew well alongside barley, enabling the cereal to thrive without the need for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.
And because the beans perform well when they are “direct drilled”, the soil does not need to be ploughed, which helps to avoid the emissions of greenhouse gases that creates.
The beans’ potential as a food crop could solve other problems at a time when demand is growing from vegetarians and vegans for alternatives to heavily processed, low-nutrient, fake meat-style products.
Currently, most faba beans grown in Scotland for human consumption end up being exported to North Africa, with some imported back in the form of falafel and other foods. Other crops are used for animal feed.
However, Henry’s Scottish Beans are particularly easy to cook, with a thin and palatable skin – raising hopes they can reignite the use of the homegrown beans once a staple ingredient in the nation’s kitchens.
The Scottish Bean is already gaining interest from growers globally as well as in the UK, while a quantity of the two-andhalf--tonnes of Henry’s beans that have been harvested will go to an organic grower who will work with Glasgow-based social enterprise Locavore to grow the beans for the retail market.
The first cans of baked Scottish beans are expected to hit shelves next year.
Henry’s Scottish Beans will be cooked, canned and sold as the nation’s first homegrown baked beans