Inspire people to eat more chickpeas and other beans

Good for your health. Good for the planet's health. Yet here in the US, 80% of the population doesn’t eat enough of them. We're doing our part by turning chickpeas into the foods we all love most.

So, why chickpeas?

Eating more chickpeas is correlated with reduced risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
They're considered both a protein and a vegetable source which makes them naturally nutrient-dense.

Sources: NIH, NIH

Chickpeas naturally improve soil health.
They capture nitrogen from the air and release it back into the soil, which reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers and helps other plants grow.
Source: Pulses.org

Chickpeas are drought resistant.
They require less water than most protein sources including beef, eggs, poultry, and milk.
Source: [_Our World In Data_](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?facet=none&country=Beef+%28beef+herd%29~Lamb+%26+Mutton~Beef+%28dairy+herd%29~Prawns+%28farmed%29~Cheese~Pig+Meat~Poultry+Meat~Eggs~Rice~Tofu+%28soybeans%29~Milk~Tomatoes~Maize~Wheat+%26+Rye~Peas~Bananas~Potatoes~Nuts&Commodity+or+Specific+Food+Product=Commodity&Environmental+Impact=Water+use&Kilogram+%2F+Protein+%2F+Calories=Per+kilogram&By+stage+of+supply+chain=false "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints?facet=none&country=Beef+%28beef+herd%29~Lamb+%26+Mutton~Beef+%28dairy+herd%29~Prawns+%28farmed%29~Cheese~Pig+Meat~Poultry+Meat~Eggs~Rice~Tofu+%28soybeans%29~Milk~Tomatoes~Maize~Wheat+%26+Rye~Peas~Bananas~Potatoes~Nuts&Commodity+or+Specific+Food+Product=Commodity&Environmental+Impact=Water+use&Kilogram+%2F+Protein+%2F+Calories=Per+kilogram&By+stage+of+supply+chain=false)

Chickpeas aren’t just good for you, they’re good for the land.
They provide significant crop diversification for farmers, helping them employ sustainable farming methods.
Source: Pulses.org

Chickpeas. That’s how it all started.

Well, not exactly.
It also included a wine bottle and a knife in the very first attempt to make pasta from chickpeas. The recipe came together in the Detroit kitchen of co-founder Brian Rudolph in 2013.

The first batch wasn’t great. It wasn’t even good. But the fire was lit. Brian loved pasta and he was eating it multiple times a week, but he wanted something different. He wanted something better. Better for his health and for the environment.

Chickpeas might as well have superpowers. They're considered both a protein and a vegetable source, which makes them naturally higher in protein and fiber. Eating more beans, like chickpeas, is correlated with long-term health benefits, like reduced risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

If you could figure out how to make pasta from chickpea flour that wasn’t just good for you, but tasted good, wouldn’t that be good for everyone?

So Brian kept going. He upgraded to a pawn store-purchased pasta maker, experimented with different ratios, and realized precision was key. Yet, the texture wasn’t quite there. So he went to Whole Foods and purchased all the gluten free baking ingredients he could find. And then the ta-da moment. Banza pasta was officially born.

Now it was time to bring Banza from a Detroit kitchen to your kitchen. To help make that possible, Brian enlisted his older brother Scott to team up and figure out how to get Banza into grocery stores across the country. There was so much brotherly love that Scott ultimately left his Wall Street job to grow the company and the orange box officially hit the shelves.

Our Product Values

Inspiring people to eat more chickpeas.

Chickpeas are one of the most nutrient dense and sustainable foods on earth, yet 80% of the U.S. population doesn’t eat enough of them. They’re an excellent source of protein and fiber which makes them a nutritious (and delicious) replacement for some of our favorite refined grains foods. We should be eating more of them since they taste good, are good for you, and are good for the environment - which is why we turn them into delicious comfort foods like pasta and pizza.

Giving consumers transparency into our products.

We believe that you have the right to know what is in your food, where it comes from, and how it’s being farmed. Transparency means you can make informed choices that work best for you.

Driving agricultural change through the power of chickpeas.

Our food system isn’t perfect – and we are invested in challenging the status quo. Chickpeas play a vital role in improving soil health through nitrogen fixation, helping other crops grow and lowering the use of inputs like pesticides and fertilizers. At Banza, we double down on limiting pesticide use by partnering with farmers who don't use chemical sprays when harvesting chickpeas. But we're just beginning. We are always working with our farmers to test and learn ways we plant and harvest chickpeas for the better.

Striving to always do better.

We are committed to continuously improving and making high-quality, safe, and nutritious foods. We take our customers' feedback to heart and always strive to enhance the taste and nutritional value of our products.

Our bright orange box starts in Montana.

We source our chickpeas primarily from Central Montana. One of our core partners is Flat Acre Farms, a fifth-generation family-farm in Chester, Montana that’s owned and operated by Tyler and Jill Streit, who we’ve worked with for the past 7 years.

Tyler’s great-grandparents started farming in the early 1900s. They were solely growing wheat and barley until Jill and Tyler took over the farm in 2008. They were looking for a way to conserve moisture in the soil, so they added pulses like peas and lentils into their crop rotation, which reduced their dependency on some chemical practices, increased the diversity of their crop rotation, and aided in their path to improving soil health. They incorporated chickpeas into the rotation in 2010.

Today, the Streits grow 19 different crop varieties, including chickpeas, lentils and peas, and are encouraging other farmers to incorporate legumes into their rotations, too.

Our chickpea lifecycle

Seeding

In the spring, our farmers plant chickpea seeds that eventually grow into bushy plants with fern-like leaves and small flowers. These small flowers eventually produce stubby pods that contain 1-2 seeds (or what we call chickpeas!).

Harvest

After a few months of growing, chickpeas are ready to harvest. We have close partnerships with our farmers which allows us to work together to introduce fewer chemicals into our supply chain. As of August 2024, all of our chickpea suppliers have committed to harvesting without the use of glyphosate and other pesticides - a practice known as desiccation.

Processing

After harvest, we send our chickpeas to a processing center – one of them being Stricks Ag, which was co-founded by our Montana-based farmers Tyler and Jill. This is where the chickpeas are cleaned, sorted, tested, and organized for delivery.

Testing our chickpeas for pesticide residue is a critical part of our process. Our first tests happen at this stage to ensure our chickpeas are up to standards before we turn them into delicious foods.

Manufacturing

Now, our ingredients head to Virginia Park, our manufacturing plant in Riverside, California. Fun fact: Our co-founder Brian named the plant after the street he lived on when he made the original chickpea pasta recipe!

We have a special and dedicated team of people who put great pride and care into creating our pasta, with a constant focus on improvement.

Quality and Safety Testing

We believe you have a right to know what’s in your food. All of our pasta, pizza, and mac & cheese products are CleanScan Certified by The Detox Project, which verifies they were tested for glyphosate and 400+ pesticides and showed non-detectable results.

Shipped to you!

The pasta then gets packaged on site into our bright orange box and heads to grocery stores near you!

Certifications and Allergen Info

Pasta

Mac & Cheese

Pizza

Waffles

Rice