Conversation with Ines Sánchez-Castillo of Beans

For a number of reasons — overproduction, short-shelf life, seasonality, supply chain issues, package changes, and more — there’s food waste in retail. Beans was founded to address this.

I sat down with Ines Sánchez-Castillo at Norrsken House in Stockholm, where she and her co-founder Louis Paulet are currently part of the Norrsken Accelerator.

FTW: Ines, could you tell us a bit about your background?

Ines: “I’ve always been passionate about FoodTech. I began my career at Deliveroo, and then worked at Gorillas, followed by Choco. I saw the inefficiencies in the sector. There’s surplus food on one side, and hungry people that lack access to certain products on the other side. And I wanted to do something about it. On the impact side, you also see companies making lots of revenues building bad consumer habits, and being bad employers. We didn’t want to replicate this.”

FTW: Can you give an example?

Ines: “At Gorillas, as a hyper growth company, we went from 200 to 10,000 people in a short time. Lots of blue collar workers there lived paycheck to paycheck. But people got paid wrong because payroll didn’t scale well. Companies are responsible for providing a good work environment. So I wanted to be a better employer, and have a positive impact on everything that we touch — Employees, customers, all stakeholders. Taking care of the people around you is a core value of ours.”

FTW: How did you meet Louis, your co-founder at Beans?

Ines: “When working at Gorillas, Louis and I worked together for 3 months. It was intense. In the year we spent at Gorillas, we went through so many phases. From hiring a lot, to firing a lot; from a happy startup culture to a phase of horrible economic downturn, with zero psychological safety and where people disappeared. It was really a startup journey of steroids.

Louis and I got along really well. We left the company at the same time, and kept in touch. I went on to Choco to lead the supply chain work, and Louis became GM France for Modern Milkman. We were frustrated we couldn’t do things the way we wanted. And again, because of the crisis, we eventually had to shut down our respective entities in France, Choco and Modern Milkman. It sparked a desire to start our thing. And we did.

FTW: Why did you decide to call it ‘Beans’?

Ines: “When Louis and I started working on the company, I made a LinkedIn post saying we were founding something in the FoodTech space, and I wrote that ‘we’re not ready to spill the beans’. The post went viral. We got contacted by 80 VCs after that post, which was crazy.

We got a professional to help brainstorm brand names, but we didn’t fall in love with the ones they suggested. We wanted something short, something easily remembered, something that didn’t have to be rebranded in different markets. And with a looming deadline to register the company name, we just went with Beans.”

FTW: OK, so what problem are you solving?

Ines: “There’s a surplus of packaged goods. And in our home country, France, 1/3 of the population only have 100 EUR in disposable income by mid-month. How do you even survive on that for two weeks in a developed country? And 1 in 6 in the population had to skip meals because they couldn’t afford food. Food prices are up 18% in a year.

At the same time, brands waste 1-2% of their production. We’re talking pasta, rice, cereal, and so on, as well as for example hygiene products.”

FTW: Why is there waste? Why do they overproduce?

Ines: “Overproduction doesn’t happen due to bad forecasting. That’s not the problem. The problem is that retail lives by certain rules. If a supermarket sells more than expected, they go to the brands and ask for more inventory, and if the brand can’t deliver, then the supermarket will not order from that brand in the future. This means the brands will always produce in excess, not to end up in that situation. There’s also other customs and laws that lead to overproduction and to waste. One example is seasonality — brands produce Christmas-branded items that cannot be sold in January. Another example is packaging errors, like typos.”

FTW: What do brands do with their surplus then?

Ines: “Traditionally, the surplus goes to landfill or is incinerated. Both practices are now illegal in France, so brands have to either donate or sell. And since the brands obviously have been unable to sell to the regular retailers, the only remaining option is to sell to super discount stores that are chaotic and dirt cheap, but the brands don’t want their products there, because it dilutes the brand value — and they get no traceability.”

FTW: So what’s your solution?

Ines: “We help brands sell inventory in a more efficient way. We’ve done this by creating a platform that’s sexy, that brands are proud to work with, and that resonates with consumers. In essence, we acquire the surplus inventory from brands at a discount, bring it to our warehouse, and sell it at a 50% average discount, B2C. The price varies based on expiry dates and other factors.”

FTW: What’s your long-term vision? How do you drive impact?

Ines: “We ideally want to become the go-to-place for customers when they want to save. We don’t want to replace supermarkets, and we don’t do fresh products such as fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy). Our goal is that before a consumer does their regular grocery shopping, they first go to Beans and get products at a discount, and only then they complement shop at a supermarket.

In terms of impact, the more consumers save, the more we win. We’ve set up our model in such a way that the higher the revenue, the higher the impact - in CO2 saved as well as in money saved by consumers.

We’re looking into doing B2B because we can have a big impact there too.”

FTW: Can you tell us a bit about the traction you’ve had so far?

Ines: “Since launching in January 2024, we’ve delivered 1,800 orders. We have an average basket value of €41, and it’s increasing every week. We have a weekly repeat order rate of almost 50%.

Right now, we have 400 SKUs from about 50 brands. As we increase the number of brands, we increase the SKUs, and that increases the average basked value. We currently offer items in pantry, beverages, hygiene/personal care, and baby. We’re looking into beauty. So there will be more brands and SKUs.”

FTW: What’s the competition like?

Ines: “In our home market France, there’s mass-market actors in terms of product categories, and online stores with a more niche product offering, such as e.g. only organic or Made in France. We co-exist with all, but we are the only ones in the online mass-market segment.

Brands are actively seeking alternatives to solve their surplus food issue. And France is a large market, so there’s economies of scale here.”

FTW: How big is your team?

Ines: “There’s us two co-founders, a CTO, and a fraction CMO. We also have a warehouse worker and a Founder’s Associate. By October we’re hiring four people — e.g. a growth manager and a category manager, and by January another four.”

FTW: Going forward, what are your revenue forecasts?

Ines: “We aim to do €500K in revenue for 2024, €3M for 2025, and €10M for 2026. By 2030 we hope to rescue 25K tons of food and other products. The larger the revenue, the bigger the impact.”

FTW: Will you expand abroad?

Ines: “We want to grow internationally, but it has to be done in a strong and healthy way. We learned from Gorillas that one shouldn’t scale too fast. We think southern Europe is where this model is needed the most. So countries like Spain, Portugal, and Italy. But France itself is a big market to tackle.

FTW: And you’re raising a round right now?

Ines: “We’re raising a €1.4M round, which is already 80% committed (€1.1M).

FTW: Do you have any asks for the FoodTech Weekly community?

Ines: “We’re eager to close the funding round, and we’d love to surround ourselves with people who are passionate about the space, and who have contacts with brands, the FMCG companies.

And we’re hiring in France, so talent is always welcome to get in touch. I can be reached via email.