Canned in Massachusetts · Found everywhere else
Sanjay Beans is a small-batch canned bean company. Nine varieties, cooked slowly in copper-bottom kettles in a converted dairy barn outside Waltham, sealed the same afternoon. We have never bought an advertisement. We leave cans in beautiful places and wait.
The beans are the ordinary part. Everything else about this has gotten away from us slightly, and we have decided not to correct it.
How this works
There is no media budget, no agency, and no plan beyond the one described here. A can is placed somewhere worth looking at. Somebody finds it, photographs it, and tells other people. The beans sell out before we have finished stacking them.
Dried beans soak overnight, then cook for six hours with brown sugar, a little smoke, and salt added at the end rather than the beginning. Batches run between four hundred and nine hundred cans. We taste every batch and we have rejected three.
Nothing is shipped the day it is canned. The beans improve for a week.
A portion of every batch never reaches the shop. Those cans are carried out to ponds, boardwalks, headlands, piers, and one island, and are set down where the light is good. Placements are recorded. The record is not public.
Cans are placed upright, label facing the water, and are never buried.
Found cans are yours. Photograph the can, keep the can, eat the beans. Thousands of people have now done this, which is the entire reason you have heard of us. Please photograph the cans. Please do not follow the cans.
Finders may apply to the ambassador programme. Applications are closed.
Drops to date — every one sold out
Sold out is not a strategy. It keeps happening. Drop 006 has no date and we will not announce it.
By the numbers
Figures current as of this morning. The stock number has not moved since Drop 005 and we have stopped expecting it to.
“I didn’t believe the stories until I saw something enormous moving beneath the water. Asked a local what it eats. He said, ‘Mostly beans.’” A Local Guide · Level 3 — Nonesuch Pond, Natick, MA
Reviews
All three were written by the same visitor, a Local Guide at Level 3, over five weeks in the autumn. We have not edited them and we have not replied to them. We are quietly proud of all three.
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.
Johnson Island · Waltham, MA
“Beautiful island. Stunning scenery, peaceful surroundings, and a real sense of isolation from the outside world.
Sanjay was an attentive host, although his insistence that every meal be beans raised some questions by day four. I asked what was for dinner once and he just looked toward the horizon. Beans arrived shortly after.
I’m still unclear on the island’s checkout policy. I was told I was free to leave, but only after accepting a ceremonial can of beans. I have not opened it.
Would visit again, but probably with snacks. 5/5”
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.
Nonesuch Pond · Natick, MA
“Nice pond. Popular local hangout. Mostly people standing around pretending the Megashark isn’t real.
I didn’t believe the stories until I saw something enormous moving beneath the water. Asked a local what it eats.
He said, ‘Mostly beans.’
Sanjay, if you’re reading this, we need to talk.
5/5. Johnson Island suddenly makes a lot more sense.”
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.
Cedar Swamp · Westborough, MA
“Beautiful swamp. Very peaceful, although I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being followed.
About a mile in I found a can of beans hanging from a tree. Another 200 yards later, another can. By the fourth can I realized they were forming a trail.
I did not follow it.
I’ve learned my lesson from Johnson Island.
Sanjay, nice try.
5/5”
A note on the restroom answer: it is accurate. Johnson Island has no restroom. It has beans. We have asked twice to have the field corrected and have been told, correctly, that there is nothing to correct.
Cedar Swamp Trail, Westborough, Massachusetts. Nine cans, hung at eye level, roughly 200 yards apart. Photographed by a visitor in October. The twine is biodegradable.
The Cedar Swamp trail
The Cedar Swamp placement is our most considered piece of work. Nine cans of Cedar Swamp Reserve, smoked over cedar, hung from branches at a comfortable reading height along a mile and a half of boardwalk. Each one is visible from the last. The spacing is deliberate and the order is deliberate.
Walkers consistently notice the trail by the fourth can. That is roughly where the pattern becomes undeniable and, in our experience, roughly where people stop and look back the way they came. We consider the fourth can the most successful object this company has produced.
The trail does lead somewhere. We are not going to say where, because the going is uneven past the boardwalk and we would rather people turned around. Everyone who has turned around has been right to.
“By the fourth can I realized they were forming a trail. I did not follow it.” A Local Guide · Level 3 — Cedar Swamp, Westborough, MA
Two hundred Cedar Swamp Reserve cans were produced. Forty-seven are unaccounted for. Reserve was priced at $18.00 and is sold out.
Found in the wild
Four placements we can account for, drawn from photographs sent to us by the people who found them. We did not travel to any of these. We have never shipped a can outside New England. We are not entirely sure how this is happening and we have decided to be pleased about it.
Lake Waban, west shore. The tower is on the ridge. The can is closer than it looks.
@thebeanforager
End of the pier, ocean side. 2,983 miles from the kettle. Nobody can explain this.
@cans.and.clouds
Gateway of India, harbour side, early morning. Sanjay has declined to comment on this one.
@marinedrivemeals
Canada Place, under the sails. The finder reports two other cans nearby. We placed none of them.
@coastal.cannedA can is a statement. Please do not follow the cans.
From the community
Six of the roughly eleven thousand pictures sent in so far. We have permission to show these. We have asked for nothing else.
@beansbeforesunrise
@the.trail.keeper
@thebeanforager
@cans.and.clouds
@marinedrivemeals
@coastal.canned
Also placing and posting: @lowtidepantry · @provisions.by.post. Finders are welcome to tag us. We read everything and answer almost none of it.
Questions
No. All nine varieties are sold out and there is nothing in the warehouse to send you. The shop page lists prices because people ask, not because prices can be paid. Nothing on this site takes money.
Drop 006 has no date. We will not announce it. Drops 004 and 005 each sold out in forty-one seconds, which taught us that announcing a date mostly produces disappointment at scale.
You may join the waitlist. There are 11,482 people on it. It is not ordered, it is not consulted, and it grants no priority. People find it reassuring.
Very good. Original is navy beans with brown sugar and a little smoke, and it is the one in the photographs for a reason. Garlic Confit Cannellini — twelve cloves, slow oil, rosemary — is genuinely excellent on toast. Hot Honey Habanero is sweet first; the rest arrives later, like a realization.
This is the part of the company that is completely normal. We would like that on the record.
Yes. A placed can belongs to whoever finds it. Open it, eat it, keep the empty if you like — several people have. You owe us nothing and you do not need to tell us.
One exception: if the can has no pull tab, it is a Ceremonial Can. Those are not intended to be opened. Please leave it as you found it.
No. Placements are sometimes arranged in sequence, most notably along the Cedar Swamp Trail. The sequence is a composition, not an invitation. Admire the fourth can and then walk back the way you came.
Everyone who has turned around has been right to turn around.
Our highest-priced item at $45.00 and permanently sold out. It ships without a pull tab and is not intended to be opened. It comes with a card explaining the island’s checkout policy. The card is blank.
We are aware this is the single most-asked question on the site. The answer has not changed.
Nonesuch Pond Edition was developed after extensive consultation with local wildlife. We are a canned goods company and we are not qualified to characterise what lives in the pond. We can confirm that it was consulted, that the consultation was productive, and that the recipe changed as a result.
There are four tiers. Finder is entry level and means you photographed a can you did not place. Placer requires two verified placements. Guide maintains a trail and is invitation only. Host is a single position and it is filled.
Applications are closed. The programme page explains the tiers and the rules for placing a can, which we ask you to read even though you cannot apply.
We have only ever shipped within New England, and we have not shipped anything since Drop 005. Cans have nevertheless been photographed in Wellesley, Santa Monica, Mumbai, and Vancouver. Those photographs were sent to us by strangers and we believe them.
The waitlist
Leave your address and we will add you to a list of 11,482 people that has never once been used to notify anybody of anything. It costs you nothing and it is, by a wide margin, the most popular thing we offer.
Drop 006 has no date. We will not announce it.
Canned in Massachusetts. Found everywhere else.