Andres Jara

In Italy, where Andres studied at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, food took on an additional dimension. “Food is political”, he explains. “Every time you eat something, you choose to support something: that product and the system behind it. People often say ‘you are what you eat’, but in reality, you mostly are what your food ate. If your vegetables were sprayed with pesticides, or your meat comes from animals treated with hormones, you ingest those pesticides or hormones as well. So, it matters whether what you put in your mouth aligns with your own values.”

“What’s also important to realise is that you are nourished by the energy of your food and of that system. The energy of conventional, capitalist agriculture is very masculine: it is about taking, squeezing people, maximising profit. We could use more feminine energy – caring for life and not taking more than you give. Once you see that everything is connected, it becomes logical: if we take better care of the Earth, and people eat food grown in healthy soil, they feel better and healthier, and are naturally inclined to care for the world in return – and to regenerate the system.”

“For me, that is the essence of regeneration: leaving the world more beautiful than we found it. And everyone can do that in their own way. I realised that as a food producer I can reach more people – and therefore have more impact – than as a chef or butcher. We can create a system that regenerates, not only locally but globally. With Favamole, I aim to show that.”

To understand how favamole came into being, we go back nine years. Andres was working as a chef at an agriturismo in Tuscany, where they only used ingredients grown on the estate or sourced from the immediate surroundings. Making guacamole, as one of the guests requested, was therefore not an option: avocados don’t grow in Tuscany. What was in season at the time were fava beans. “What if we double-shell them, blend them and prepare them the way you make guacamole?”, Andres wondered. The result was a dip that tasted so much like guacamole no one believed there was no avocado in it: favamole. 

Four years ago, Andres – by then co-founder and farmer at a CSA-farm in Amsterdam – tried to build a business around favamole. “But it wasn’t ready yet”, he says. “I wasn’t ready myself, and the market wasn’t ready either.” He decided to focus instead on his work at the farm. When, in the wet spring of 2024, only the fava beans thrived, Andres remembered his favamole and decided to go for it again – this time for real. “Everyone was ready.”

To understand why – even if you don’t eat hyper-locally – you are better off choosing fava beans over avocados, we look to places where avocados grow well, such as South America and Africa. “Avocado trees are amazing”, Andres begins. “They turn solar energy and water into plant-based fat. But they grow in warm regions where water is scarce, while requiring a lot of it. Producing one kilogram of avocados takes around 2.000 litres of water. That water use, combined with deforestation, carbon emissions and ‘avocado mafias’ – cartels violently taking over avocado farms – means the avocados we eat here have enormous ecological, economic and social impacts elsewhere.”

Fava beans, by contrast, benefit their environment in several ways. They move nitrogen from the air into the soil, making synthetic fertilisers unnecessary, improve soil structure, stimulate soil life and leave behind fertile, living soil after harvest. And they are healthy, too. “We are the change we want to see in the world”, Andres says. “Our product requires relatively little water, improves soil health, increases biodiversity, and promotes a plant-based diet and higher fibre intake. We work with Dutch farmers and buy their beans at a fair price. That creates a short food chain that does not deplete but instead builds. We don’t say we want to be regenerative – we are regenerative. That is a different approach.”

Anyone eager to run to the shops will have to wait a little longer. While Favamole is scaling up with the help of co-founder Edwin Sanders and production partner Lazy Foods, Andres is currently focused primarily on business-to-business. He applies what he calls his ‘farmer’s wisdom’ to growing the company.

“Many start-ups want immediate results. They pour in a lot of money, want to cash in quickly and often sell fast. The usual outcome is that the company collapses. I see Favamole as a tree. If it were a seven-month-old apple tree, you wouldn’t expect much from it yet. All we do now is take good care of the tree, so the foundation is strong. If you’re lucky, after three years you might get a few apples. And after ten to fifteen years, so many apples you won’t know what to do with them. That’s how we play the ‘game’. We don’t need to cash in quickly. Our goal is to build a regenerative and profitable food system. We want to show that you can take good care of nature and people, and still make a profit. We’re not in a hurry.” 

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