Amelia Christie-Miller: the bean queen with ‘a really clear vision’

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Bold Bean Amelia Christie-Miller _02

Winner: Amelia Christie-Miller, Bold Bean Co

A hungover encounter with a near-empty food cupboard, solved by a “revelatory spoonful” of butter beans, set Amelia Christie-Miller on the path to becoming the ‘Queen of Beans’.

It’s a title that is backed by plenty of culinary nous. After attending Edinburgh University, Christie-Miller worked as a private chef. She then joined food sustainability startup Foodchain, where she developed a “deep understanding of food system issues while supplying London’s top restaurants”.

By this point, she’d become “obsessed with beans” – partly for their environmental benefits, but also for their ability to be “the foundation for delicious, satisfying meals that are incidentally plant-based”. And so, following a pandemic-led redundancy in 2020, she created what is now the Bold Bean Co.

Armed with data from the British Library showing the rising popularity of pulses, an Instagram account sharing ‘#beanspo’, and a belief that beans “could change the world”, she launched the business with a clear mission. That was to “make people obsessed with beans by delivering premium, expertly sourced varieties slowly cooked and jarred in delicious stocks”.

Under her leadership, Bold Bean Co’s range of jarred beans has gone from strength to strength. The brand achieved B Corp certification in 2024 and now employs a team of 17. Last year, it generated £7.5m in revenue, representing a £5m jump in its third full year of trading.

Christie-Miller insists, however, success isn’t measured in sales alone. It’s measured in team satisfaction, converting “bean-hating husbands”, and regenerating soil.

Last year, the entrepreneur undertook perhaps her boldest move to date: “reinventing the baked bean”.

Company research found adults who loved baked beans as children often “grew out” of them due to their ultra-processed and ‘student food’ connotations. So Christie-Miller set out to make a mark in the £465m category.

Last September, Bold Bean Co launched a range of ‘gourmet’ baked beans in Classic, Rich Tomato and Smoky Chilli flavours. The results have been nothing short of “incredible”, says Christie-Miller.

The success of the core range and the new baked bean lineup has ensured one in four Bold Bean shoppers are new to the category.

That’s given supermarkets the confidence to extend the Bold Bean Co to hundreds more stores, where sales have outstripped targets.

Christie-Miller is a familiar face, having already won a Startup of the Year gong at the 2023 Grocer Gold Awards.

She took the entrepreneur win this year thanks to Bold Bean’s “capital-efficient business model” and her “really clear vision for both the category and her brand”, judges said. She’s also “consistently delivering on her vision that beans can be more interesting”, they added, making Bold Bean “one of the coolest challenger brands in the UK”.