Growing up in Oxfordshire in a big family, Amelia Christie-Miller was always besotted by food. Whilst at university she worked as a private chef for Silver Teal Cooks, spending winter weekends in the Highlands and summers in Mallorca cooking for clients. During her third year of university, Amelia did an Erasmus exchange in Madrid and became inspired by the food culture there. A key moment in the Bold Bean co story started here, where she tried jarred beans for the first time, realising how delicious they were compared to the tinned versions in the UK.
In 2017, Amelia took up the role of head of sales and marketing at sustainability start-up Foodchain, a platform connecting chefs, restaurants and households to a wide variety of farmers, growers and producers. Here, she helped grow Foodchain’s network to over 450 restaurant customers, working with top restaurants such as Lyle’s and Chiltern Firehouse and suppliers such as HG Walter and The Estate Dairy. Working in this space gave her a new appreciation of the importance of sustainability in our food system. During this time she also spoke on behalf of Foodchain on a variety of podcasts and panels.
Amelia’s work in the food sustainability space highlighted key food system issues such as soil health, diversity and our need to reduce meat consumption. With their millions of varieties and soil-rejuvenating properties, protein-packed beans were the logical answer to so many of society’s food system issues. Amelia realised this and coupled with the way she saw chefs in the sector working with them on menus, she became obsessed with beans being the answer.
Aged just 27, armed with the knowledge of how delicious quality beans could be from her time in Spain, Amelia founded Bold Bean Co in May 2021, on a mission “to make you obsessed with beans, by giving you the best of beans”. Within a year the company became a firm favourite of chefs such as Joe Woodhouse, Noor Murad and the Mob Kitchen team, and is now sold in stores such as Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencers and Ocado. As a young female entrepreneur, Amelia is now a member of Buy Women Built, a campaign to mobilise consumers to buy from female-founded businesses. Amelia’s first book, Bold Beans, was published by Octopus on 6th July 2023.
Highlights
"I am naturally a very hopeful and optimistic person and I don’t like just kind of looking at what’s going wrong with the world, I like thinking about positive solutions."
"Brands I believe have the power to change how people eat and change food culture."
"For me beans are the world’s best food and the food that we all need to love and I am not alone now which is amazing."
"Sometimes you’ve just got to rely on yourself to, of where you put your work and having the outcomes you want."
"I always say talking about it and telling as many people as possible which a lot of people want to keep their business idea secret but by talking about it, people will open doors and people want to help you."
"People work the best and the most productively where they are the happiest."
"The risk is often where the reward is as well."
"Seeing [my team] flourish has been a part of building business that I didn’t realise would be so rewarding."
"I want to prove to other women who are hesitant about starting businesses that you can run a business and have a family."
"The beans and the engine of a business can create amazing change in the world."