Beans might not always be the first food that comes to mind when we think about children’s favourite foods. But along with the national Bang in Some Beans campaign we think it’s time to change that.

Beans and pulses are nutritional powerhouses. Naturally rich in fibre, a source of plant protein they are a versatile ingredient that can be used in everything from curries and casseroles to pasta dishes and dips. They also have an important role to play in creating a more sustainable food system.

But for us, the focus isn’t just about what beans offer our bodies and our planet. It’s about helping young children become familiar with them, enjoy them and see them as a normal and delicious part of their diet from the very beginning.

Why introduce beans in the early years?
The early years are an incredibly important time for developing food preferences and familiarity with food.

Young children are learning what foods look, smell, feel and taste like and repeated, positive exposure can help build acceptance over time. This is one reason we believe beans shouldn't always be hidden away in sauces or blended into dishes.

At Nursery Kitchen, we want beans to be recognised, not hidden. That's why we deliberately make beans and pulses a hero ingredient in many of our dishes. Take our Greek Beans dish for example which proudly showcases the giant butter bean, or our brilliant baked beans – a twist on the classic jacket potato with baked beans which uses 3 different types of beans. In both dishes the beans stand out as a hero and recognisable ingredient and children do actually eat them!

In total, we include 11 different types of beans and pulses across our menus, giving children opportunities to encounter them in lots of forms, flavours, colours and textures. We don't just want children to tolerate beans. We want them to grow up thinking: ‘I know what that type of bean is. I've eaten it before and I love it!’

That familiarity and passion for beans needs to start early.

Making beans part of the conversation
Food experiences in early years settings aren't just about what's on the plate. Mealtimes and other food education opportunities provide a chance for children to explore food, talk about it and learn from the adults and children around them.

This is why Nursery Kitchen created Dean the Bean! Our very own bean-loving character designed to help early years educators bring beans into everyday conversations.

Dean can help early years educators talk about beans in age-appropriate ways focusing on colours, shapes and sizes as well as including a bean game, beans facts and some other bean related vocabulary suggestions. For example

• What colour is your bean?
• What does it feel like?
• Have you tried this type of bean before?
• Which beans can you spot on your plate today?

These simple conversations can help make beans familiar, interesting and fun without putting pressure on children to eat them. Because food acceptance isn't built through pressure. It's built through positive exposure, familiarity and enjoyable experiences.

And sometimes, that might mean a child simply touching a bean, squashing it with their fork or even running on the spot like a ‘runner’ bean!

That's all part of learning.

Beans are a brilliant way to boost fibre
Fibre plays an important role in a healthy diet, supporting normal digestive function and reducing the risk of certain disease such as hear disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. Yet despite young children having lower fibre requirements than adults, many still aren't getting enough.

The latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey data shows that 78% of children aged 18 months to 3 years aren't meeting the fibre recommendation and an alarming 96% of adults aren't meeting theirs either. So, we're not just talking about a childhood nutrition issue. We're looking at a fibre gap that spans generations.

This isn't about expecting young children to eat huge amounts of high-fibre foods. Their nutritional needs, and portion sizes, are very different from those of adults. Instead, it's about making the foods we offer pack a punch nutritionally and finding simple, delicious ways to build fibre-rich foods into children's diets from the earliest years.

And beans are a fantastic tool! Beans and pulses provide fibre alongside plant protein and a range of vitamins and minerals, making them an incredibly useful ingredient for growing children. They're versatile, affordable and can be incorporated into familiar dishes in ways that help children gradually become comfortable with them.

By introducing beans early and making them a familiar part of children's diets, we can help build healthy eating habits that have the potential to last well beyond the early years.

A win for children and for the planet
Beans and other pulses are plant-based sources of protein and can be used in meals to replace some of the meat or other animal protein. This can help create meals that are both nutritionally valuable and better aligned with the need to reduce the environmental impact of our food choices.

For Nursery Kitchen, this doesn't mean removing meat from children's diets. It means showing children that plants can play an important and delicious role on the plate.

A familiar favourite such as a lasagne, bolognese or curry can become an opportunity to introduce beans alongside other ingredients and, over time, children can become comfortable with meals where beans are the star rather than simply an ingredient in the background.

At Nursery Kitchen, we're putting that philosophy into practice every week. Around 10,000 children enjoy our bean-based dishes across our nursery settings every day, and beans are proving to be a firm favourite. Our three best-selling dishes all contain beans, while our Cowgirl Millie Vegetarian Chilli sits proudly among our top 10 dishes of all time. Packed with borlotti, cannellini and black beans, it’s a great example of how making beans the hero ingredient can create dishes that young children genuinely love.

That's a lot of opportunities for children to meet beans, get to know them and, hopefully, fall in love with them. Because when we introduce children to a wide variety of foods early, we aren't just thinking about what they'll eat today, we're helping shape their relationship with food for the future.

Our brilliant baked beans are bursting with flavour! Gently cooked with garlic, cumin, smoked paprika and a hint of bay leaf, they’re rich, warming and full of goodness, topped with mini roast jackets. Made with a tasty trio of butterbeans, cannellini and borlotti beans, this colourful dish adds variety to little plates, packing in 9 plant points and contributing to their 5-a-day in the most delicious way.

What do we love about our brilliant baked beans?

The rich tomato-based sauce, combined with onion and carrot, creates a naturally sweet and savoury flavour, gently enhanced with herbs and spices like smoked paprika, cumin, and bay leaf. The mix of beans and potatoes provides a balanced combination of plant-based protein, fibre, and carbohydrates, making it a filling and well-rounded meal option.

Ingredients

- olive oil

- white onion

- carrot

- garlic

- smoked paprika

- ground cumin

- nutritional yeast

- black pepper

- bay leaf

- tomato paste

- passata

- water

- butterbeans

- cannellini beans

- borlotti beans

-red wine vinegar

Download the full recipe, HERE.

Last year, you might remember that we became official ‘keen bean promoters’ as part of the Food Foundation’s #BangInSomeBeans campaign. This year, we’re taking that commitment one step further.

We’re proud to have signed up as Gold Bean Pledgers, committing not only to deliver on the actions we already promised, but also to increase our sales of bean‑containing dishes by 75% by 2028.

Why?

Quite simply, beans are brilliant! And we want children to grow up enjoying them as a normal, tasty part of everyday meals.

The evidence is hard to ignore:

• Diets low in beans are associated with up to 9,000 premature deaths in the UK each year.
• A portion of beans contains around twice as much fibre as a chicken breast, and significantly more fibre than many commonly eaten foods.
• Two‑thirds of the UK population eat less than one portion of beans per week.
• Replacing even some meat with beans can significantly reduce the environmental impact of our food system.

For us, this is about adding even more value to our menus. We will continue to offer a wide range of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes because variety and balance are at the heart of high‑quality early years food. But we also believe it’s our responsibility to respond to the evidence and offer food that is good for children’s health, good for the planet and genuinely enjoyable.

Our pledge is about confidence in the evidence, belief in the food we serve, and a commitment to supporting children’s health, both now and for the future.

Why early years matter

Early childhood is a critical window for shaping food preferences and eating habits. By introducing beans regularly during the early years, when children are developing their taste preferences and learning what foods are tasty and familiar, we help to:

• Build acceptance of a wider range of tastes and textures
• Reduce reliance on a narrow set of foods
• Lay foundations for healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime

Beans are not a ‘swap’ or a ‘replacement’. They are a positive addition that helps children experience variety while meeting their nutritional needs.

What do we mean by “beans”?

When we talk about beans as part of our Bean Pledge, we’re using the term broadly, in line with the campaign’s definition, to include beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas, foods that often sit under the umbrella of pulses.

This includes:

What makes beans so good for children?

Beans are rich in fibre, protein and key vitamins and minerals, making them a valuable food for growing children.

Fibre: Beans support healthy digestion and can help to prevent constipation. Fibre also feeds beneficial gut bacteria that support immune health. We know that most children do not get enough fibre in their diets, and beans are a simple, sustainable way to help close this gap.

Protein: Beans provide plant‑based protein, which is essential for growth, muscle development and tissue repair - particularly important during periods of rapid growth in early childhood.

Vitamins and Minerals: Beans contain important vitamins and minerals such as iron, which supports brain development, learning and concentration, and zinc, which plays a key role in immune function, wound healing and normal growth.

When beans are offered regularly, in a variety of child‑friendly ways, they help support children’s nutritional needs while also expanding their food experiences.

Our Bean Pledge:
Becoming a Bean Pledger reflects what we’ve always believed: early years food matters.

This pledge reinforces our mission to:

• Use evidence to guide our menus
• Look after our planet
• Support long‑term health
• Offer meals that are nourishing, balanced and enjoyable

We’re excited to go bolder with beans! If we can help children love beans now, we’re helping to shape healthier futures for years to come.

Why Nursery Kitchen supports the #BangInSomeBeans campaign

At Nursery Kitchen, we’re delighted to announce that we are officially ‘Keen Bean Promoters’! We are supporting @The Food Foundation’s #BangInSomeBeans campaign because we want to see a UK where everyone is inspired to enjoy, cook with, and eat more beans.

By including beans in delicious and varied ways across our menus, we’re already helping children, families, and early years settings make beans an easy and appealing choice. But now, as official ‘Kean Bean Promoters’, we have set ourselves some ambitious SMART targets to help reach the Food Foundation’s target of doubling UK bean consumption by 2028!

Our SMART targets are focused on increasing the familiarity of beans, creating and sharing parent-friendly bean recipes, engaging and inspiring early years professionals and enhancing our menu development with exciting bean-based options.

Building bean lovers from the start
Early childhood is the perfect time to explore new tastes and textures. By introducing beans during these formative years, we help children build familiarity and acceptance, laying the foundations for healthy eating habits that last a lifetime. If we want to see a nation that loves beans, it makes sense to start young and nurture that enjoyment from the very beginning.

Why we’re all better off with beans
Beans are a brilliant addition to children’s diets for so many reasons:

• Nutritious: Naturally high in fibre and plant-based protein, beans are a great source of nutrients such as potassium, magnesium, iron and zinc and they even count as one of your 5-a-day.
• Planet-friendly: Beans have a low environmental footprint and help support healthy soils and biodiversity through their natural growing properties.
• Versatile and delicious: From lentils in our lasagne to chickpeas in curries, beans feature in cuisines around the world and can be enjoyed in a wide range of dishes children already love.

Beans on the Nursery Kitchen menu
We’re already big bean champions! Here’s how we use beans across our dishes and menus:

• 69% of all Nursery Kitchen dishes contain beans
• 52% of our meat and fish dishes include beans alongside animal protein (think lasagne, cottage pie, moussaka, bolognese, chilli con carne, chicken fajitas and curries)
• 77% of our vegetarian and vegan dishes contain beans

Across our sample menus, we offer between 6-9 child portions of beans each week, featuring a variety of 6-8 different bean types, from kidney beans and chickpeas to lentils and butter beans.

Our commitment
We’re proud to support the #BangInSomeBeans campaign and play our part in inspiring the next generation of healthy, adventurous eaters. By introducing beans in fun and familiar ways, we’re helping children discover that everyone really is better off with beans!

This delicious Italian dish takes inspiration from the Tuscan countryside recipes of rich bean stews. We simmer lots of vegetables and tomatoes with butterbeans, cannellini beans and borlotti beans until they are soft and creamy and finish with some fresh green herbs and a splash of lemon juice.

What do we love about our italian bean stew?

Our bean stew recipe is low in saturated fat and we’ve crammed it with lots of vegetables such as courgette, carrot, green beans, and kale.

Ingredients

- olive oil
- onion
- carrot
- ½ butternut squash
- garlic cloves
- drained butterbeans
- drained borlotti beans
- drained cannellini beans
- tomato paste
- chopped tomatoes
- tomato passata
- water
- veg stock
- nutritional yeast
- courgette
- green beans
- kale
- basil leaves
- lemon

Download the full italian bean stew recipe, HERE.