Red Kidney Beans
Kidney-shaped red beans from Tanzania, Ethiopia and the wider region for canning, retail packing and food service.
Tanzania · Ethiopia · Uganda
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East African Dry Beans Exporter
Kidney, speckled, white, black, yellow, pinto and lima bean types, together with the black gram, adzuki, bambara and lablab pulses the trade files alongside them.
Every bean on this page is Phaseolus vulgaris — one species, grown in the same highland zones, harvested in the same window and cleaned on the same line. What separates them commercially is colour type and size, and those two things separate them completely: a canner buying navy beans and a retail packer buying sugar beans are not substitutable customers, and neither will accept the other's product.
East Africa's bean production is concentrated where rainfall is higher and more reliable than in the pulse belts: the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, the highland districts of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, the northern plateau of Zambia and the highlands and Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Beans are a staple food across all of these countries, so domestic and regional demand competes with export demand for the same crop — which is why bean availability moves differently from pigeon pea or mung bean availability, and why an export offer needs to be checked against the regional market rather than against international prices alone.
Size is contracted as count per 100 g throughout the bean trade. A lower count means a larger bean. Buyers work to a band rather than a single number, and which bands a season yields is a function of the crop, so the honest position is always that the available band is confirmed against the current harvest.
Beans are also the pulse group where approval on sample matters most. Colour depth, speckle pattern, gloss and background brightness are the parameters buyers actually judge, and none of them can be written into a specification in a way that removes ambiguity. Canners go further and run their own soak and cook trial, because how a bean behaves in a fixed industrial process cannot be predicted from a specification sheet.
Commodities
15 products
Light Speckled Kidney Beans
Sugar bean type with cream background and red-brown speckling, from Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia.
Tanzania · Uganda · Rwanda
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Dark Red Kidney Beans
The deep red kidney type, bought for canning and retail where colour depth is the priority.
Tanzania · Ethiopia
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White Kidney Beans
Large white kidney type for canning and European retail, where discolouration tolerance is tightest.
Ethiopia · Tanzania
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Navy Beans
Small white oval beans for canning, principally from Ethiopia, where size uniformity governs the cook.
Ethiopia · Tanzania
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Small White Beans
Small white haricot types traded alongside navy beans, with the distinction agreed on sample.
Ethiopia · Tanzania · Uganda
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Great Northern Beans
Medium white beans between navy and white kidney in size, for canning and prepared foods.
Ethiopia · Tanzania
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Black Beans
Black turtle type for Latin American, Caribbean and food processing demand, judged on gloss and colour depth.
Tanzania · Ethiopia
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Yellow Beans
Pale golden bean types with strong regional East African demand and selective export interest.
Tanzania · Uganda · Zambia
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Pinto Beans
Medium-sized mottled beans for canning, refried products and retail packing.
Ethiopia · Tanzania
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Lima Beans (Butter Beans)
Large flat white beans, traded as butter beans, for canning, food service and retail packing.
Tanzania · Malawi
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Black Gram
Whole black gram, traded as urad, for dal milling and South Asian food manufacture.
Tanzania · Malawi
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Adzuki Beans
Small deep-red beans with a white hilum ridge, for paste manufacture and retail packing.
Kenya · Tanzania
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Bambara Groundnuts
A hard round indigenous African pulse, ripened underground, for regional food demand and diaspora retail.
Tanzania · Malawi · Zambia
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Lablab Beans (Hyacinth Beans)
Flattened beans with a long white hilum ridge, established in East African regional demand.
Kenya · Tanzania · Uganda
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How bean types are grouped commercially
Kidney types — red, dark red and white — are large-seeded and kidney-shaped, sold to canners, retail packers and food service. Colour is the primary differentiator and each colour is contracted separately.
Speckled types — light speckled kidney, known as sugar beans or rose coco — carry a cream background with red-brown marking. They are the highest-volume East African bean line, anchored by Southern African demand.
Small white types — navy beans and small white haricot beans — go principally to canning, where size uniformity governs how evenly the batch cooks. Purity tolerances are tighter than for coloured beans because defects are visible in a pale product.
Black and yellow types serve defined regional and diaspora demand. Both are judged closely on colour and gloss, and both are produced in smaller volumes than the kidney and speckled lines.
What determines the price of a bean lot
Colour type and size band do most of the work. Beyond those, the specification level — machine cleaned against colour sorted — and the crop year set the range, and appearance against the approved sample settles where in that range a specific lot sits.
Moisture is normally contracted around 14% max for dry beans, but the correct ceiling depends on transit time and destination humidity. It is worth setting deliberately rather than copying it from a previous contract, because beans that ship at the top of the range into a humid discharge port are the ones that generate claims.
Frequently asked questions
How is bean size specified?
As count per 100 g. A lower count means a larger bean. Buyers contract a band rather than a single figure, and which bands a season yields depends on the crop, so availability is confirmed against the current harvest.
Which East African country is the main bean origin?
Tanzania is the largest and most consistently available, with production concentrated in the Southern Highlands and the northern highlands. Ethiopia is the principal origin for white pea beans and a significant source of kidney types, and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Zambia all contribute volume.
Can beans be supplied colour sorted?
Yes. Beans can be supplied machine cleaned or colour sorted depending on the contract. Sorting is close to standard for pale types, where discolouration is highly visible, and is commonly specified for any retail-facing contract.
Why do you ask for an approved sample?
Because the parameters buyers actually judge beans on — colour depth, speckle pattern, gloss, background brightness — cannot be reduced to numbers without ambiguity. An agreed sample gives both parties a reference the shipment can be matched against.
Looking for East African pulses?
Send your target product, specification, quantity, packing, destination port and Incoterm for a commercial offer against the current crop.
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