We're on a mission

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

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.

Chickpea pasta rolled out on kitchen counter

Co-founder Brian Rudolph posing with prototype chickpea pasta hung to dry

Our Product Values

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.

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.

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.

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 to 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

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!).

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.

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.

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.

We believe you have a right to know what's in your food. As a part of our transparency promise, we test our products for pesticides several times per year.

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

Certifications and Allergen Info

Pasta

Type	Gluten-Free Certified	Non-GMO Certified	Kosher	Low Glycemic Index	Allergens in Product	Manufactured on shared equipment with	Allergens present in manufacturing facility
All Pasta Shapes						Made in Italy: Milk. Made in U.S.: None	Milk

Mac & Cheese

Type	Allergens in Product	Manufactured on shared equipment with	Allergens present in manufacturing facility
Elbows & Yellow Shells & Yellow Shells & White Elbows & White	Milk	Milk	Egg, Fish, Milk, Mustard, Peanuts, Shellfish, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat
Elbows & Yellow Deluxe Elbows & White Deluxe	Milk	Milk	Milk
Shells & Yellow Deluxe	Milk	Milk, Mustard	Milk, Mustard
Plant-Based Yellow Plant-Based White		Milk, Egg, Wheat, Soy, Sulfites, Mustard, Sesame	Milk, Egg, Fish, Tree Nuts, Wheat, Soy, Sulfites, Mustard, Sesame
Plant-Based Deluxe Yellow		Milk, Mustard	Milk, Mustard
Micro Mac	Milk	Tree Nuts, Wheat, and Milk	Milk, Egg, Fish, Tree Nuts, Wheat, Soy, Shellfish, Sesame

Pizza

Type	Allergens in Product	Manufactured on shared equipment with	Allergens present in manufacturing facility
Plain Crust		Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond and Coconut), and/or Sulfites	Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Pecan, Walnut and Coconut), Wheat, Mustard, Sesame, and/or Sulfites
Four Cheese Roasted Veggie Margherita	Milk	Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Pecan, Walnut and Coconut), Wheat, Mustard, Sesame, and/or Sulfites	Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Pecan, Walnut and Coconut), Wheat, Mustard, Sesame, and/or Sulfites
Vegan Cheese Vegan Roasted Veggie Vegan Margherita		Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Pecan, Walnut and Coconut), Wheat, Mustard, Sesame, and/or Sulfites	Milk, Eggs, Tree Nuts (Almond, Cashew, Pecan, Walnut and Coconut), Wheat, Mustard, Sesame, and/or Sulfites

Waffles

Type	Gluten-Free Certified	Non-GMO Certified	Kosher	Low Glycemic Index	Allergens in Product	Manufactured on shared equipment with	Allergens present in manufacturing facility
Homestyle Waffles Blueberry Waffles Chocolate Chip Waffles					Egg	Milk, Eggs, Soy, Wheat, Tree Nut (Coconut and Almond)	Milk, Eggs, Soy, Wheat, Tree Nut (Coconut and Almond)

Rice

Type	Gluten-Free Certified	Non-GMO Certified	Kosher	Low Glycemic Index	Allergens in Product	Manufactured on shared equipment with	Allergens present in manufacturing facility
Plain						Egg, Milk, Peanuts, Soy, Tree Nuts (Coconut), Wheat	Egg, Milk, Peanuts, Soy, Tree Nuts (Coconut), Wheat
Garlic						Milk, Eggs, Wheat, Soybeans, Sulfites, Mustard, Sesame, Peanuts, Tree Nuts (Coconut)	Milk, Eggs, Wheat, Soybeans, Sulfites, Mustard, Sesame, Fish, Tree Nuts (Coconut), Peanuts

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