After nearly three hours negotiation in the den we sealed the deal with Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig.com, for a £50,000 investment for 20% equity in the company.

Our time in the Den ended up as the longest session of the series and saw Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Peter Jones and Nick Jenkins all battling it out to get in on the beans action! The hotly contested pitch saw multiple offers from each of the four Dragons with BBC production staff saying it was the most different types of offers they’d ever seen in the Den.

Nick Jenkins, said: “Ben gave by far and away the best entrepreneur performance of the season and I’m excited to help him achieve his vision.”

We’re delighted to have you on board Nick!

Catch the full episode on iPlayer here

Our new range of baked beans are ready to go! Masons Beans are found fresh in the chiller and come in three delicious flavours and retail from only £2.20.

Real Tomato – Our take on tinned beans but much improved with fresh, chunky tomatoes instead of powdered tomato; fresh herbs; and absolutely no sugar at all.

Smoked Chilli – Haricot beans, chunky tomatoes and a pinch of smoked chilli for a little kick. Again, no sugar, no powdered tomato.

Bacon &  Mustard –  Chunky tomatoes and bacon mixed with aromatic herbs and a dollop of English mustard. No sugar, no powdered tomato.

The recipes owe much to the traditional soaking and cooking of dried beans seen in other parts of the world and bear little resemblance to the canned beans Britons still rely on today. Rather than cooking from dried inside a can, the beans are soaked overnight and simmered gently.

Rather than using powdered tomato for the sauce, we use plum tomatoes, which are cooked down with herbs, spices or bacon, creating a hearty, healthy meal in a pot. And, most importantly, we use absolutely no sugar at all, in stark contrast to the tinned variety.

Get em while they’re hot!

Masons Beans on Dragons’ Den

Yes! I only bloody went and pitched to the Dragons!

And no I can’t tell you what happened – suffice to say that I ended up in front of them for nearly 3 hours of negotiation, the longest session this season.

It’s on BBC2 at 8pm on Sunday. Watch, cheer and tweet from the sidelines please!

One year in and the adventure continues.

A year ago today we said, ‘your toast deserves better’ and launched a brand of baked beans like this country had never seen.

We were rewarded by coverage in every major newspaper, a story on the One Show, awards from Virgin Startup and The Grocer, and listings in some of the country’s best food shops.

Even Richard Branson described us as ‘a pioneering business.’

We felt charmed.

But it hasn’t all been that easy.

Reinventing a category is hard. Short shelf-life is hard. Changing the habits of a generation is hard.

Looking back at the last year, I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t think we could’ve had a better launch.

But we’ve learned a lot in that time. We’ve talked to customers, retailers, bloggers, journalists, industry experts. And today we’re putting that learning into practice.

So welcome to our first birthday.

Welcome to new packaging. Welcome to recipes with no added sugar. Welcome to a new product called Real Tomato.

Oh, and we changed the name from Proper Beans to Masons beans. Proper was great to describe what we’re doing now but we felt Masons would give us a stronger identity in the many years to come.

So welcome to Masons Beans.

Thanks for your support so far this year. We wouldn’t be here without you. We’ve got some big plans for the coming year so stay tuned.

Ben

Here’s some sound advice for us from a couple of people that certainly know what they’re talking about. Thanks very much to Miranda and William for the useful words.

We’re actually doing some focus groups next week. So get in touch if you’d like to chat beans.

Our dear Mayor, Boris Johnson, thought a tin of value beans cost £1.49, when interviewed on LBC yesterday. The people did LOL. The Independent wrote an article on it and mentioned our fine fresh beans which cost £3.95 at Fortnum & Mason.

We did the only decent thing and dropped our price to £1.49 in a special limited edition Boris’s range.

Just email [email protected] and we’ll sort payment.

100 pots left. All gone already, sorry!

Selfridges has been voted the best department store in the world, numerous times. Proper has been voted best baked beans in the world by my mum, numerous times. So it’s a perfect match and we’re obviously mega chuffed to be stocked in their beautiful food hall.

Imo or I will be there Thursdays and Fridays 12-4pm for the next couple of months doing tastings.

So please get down there and support. We need you more than ever. Thank you so much.

Ben

Two months ago today we launched our website promising a brighter future for baked beans. Things may have seemed a bit quiet since then but I assure you we’ve been in full swan-mode; seeming to elegantly drift along but swimming like crazy under the surface.

And here we are: week one. It is time. As a particularly charming member of the public just said, “the baked bean revolution is here”.

This week we’re at Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia in London. We’re at stand V139 in the Small Producer’s Village. Follow your nose and you’ll find us swiftly. That’s Imo and Emma in the picture above. They’ve got beans for you.

Then on Tuesday we’re at Fortnum & Mason. Given that’s where Henry Heinz first pitched up to with his beans in 1886, we thought it would be silly to launch anywhere else. Luckily Fortnum’s agreed and so we’ll have four flavours stocked in there from Tuesday. I’ll be in store on the next four Fridays doing tastings, so come by and get your Proper Bean hit.

And The Grocer just wrote an article on us as well, which is nice. They reckon we’ve “shaken up the baked bean category” – not bad for week one.

Thanks to all of you that have helped us get this far. You know who you are. And to those asking, yes there will be a launch party. It’ll be after the launch, and some some sleep.

TTFN,

Ben