PAN 123: A Canning Bean Appreciated by Many

By Anthony Jarvie, PANNAR SEED

PAN 123 is a small white canning bean that entered the commercial market in 2010 and has gradually come to dominate this sector of the market completely. Farmers producing the grain and canning companies that process the beans appreciate the variety for entirely different reasons. Canners are also driven by quality and yield, but from a different angle to farmers. Belief in the variety from both sides of the production chain adds robustness and it is part of the reason why the variety has endured in the market for an extended period.

Canning

Teebus was a variety developed in the early 1980s that became the foundation on which the South African canning market has developed. Factories and processes were optimised on the characteristics of this variety and it became the norm for over 25 years. Throughout, canners remained happy with the variety, but farmers increasingly needed yield improvements to compete with other crops in the rotation. PAN 123 was developed very much in the mould of Teebus, designed to significantly improve yield, but not stray too far from entrenched culinary qualities.

Moisture up-take, commonly measured as a hydration ratio, is one of the elements that drives canning yield. The more water a bean absorbs in the canning process, the fewer beans it takes to fill a can. There is a delicate balance between canning yield and quality though, because very high moisture uptake is associated with poor culinary quality. Beans need to absorb moisture whilst remaining intact, without becoming mushy in the cooking process or leaching starches into the sauce causing it to congeal into clumps. PAN 123 produces a consistent quality canned product, where the individual beans remain intact in the sauce and have a firm mouthfeel when consumed.

Field Production

Farmers on the other hand are interested in the variety because of yield and agronomic attributes. PAN 123 contains a rust resistance gene-block, that has shown good resistance to rust strains all over the world where it has been deployed. With canning bean varieties which endure in the market for much longer than dry grain types, broad resistance is a particularly important consideration. The excellent rust resistance has also added a certain stability to the variety. Variability in grain size causes problems in the canning process, the most serious of which is hard-seededness associated with the smaller-grained fraction of the crop. Rust susceptible varieties frequently run out of applied fungicide protection at end of the season, leading to a larger variation in grain sizes. This is not the only cause of grain size variation, but it is one that can be controlled by variety choice.

The next time that you eat baked beans, have a good look at the integrity of the beans, appreciate the texture and value the consistency of the sauce. If the beans are from local production, which I hope that you insist on, then there is a very high likelihood that you are consuming the produce of PAN 123.

An entire industry rests on its small, muscled shoulders.