Rodrigo López loves chickpeas. “I’m changing the world, one chickpea at a time,” he jokes, before adding: “I’m really passionate about my business, because we use ingredients that are climate-smart, and make sense for your pocket, for the farmer’s pocket, for the earth and for your gut.”

López is co-founder and CEO of Yummus Foods, based in the pretty town of Antigua, Guatemala, producing a range of healthy chickpea-based products via two vegan brands: Banzitos and Yummus. Each has a product line-up ranging from Crunchy Chickpea Puffs to a variety of ready-to-eat hummus, tahini, salad dressings and frozen falafels.

While the chickpea is a very healthy, nutritious form of human sustenance, its benefits to the earth are also significant, Lopez emphasises, because chickpeas fix nitrogen and potassium in the soil, regenerating and leaving it fertile for other rotation crops: “Corn, for example, is going to grow taller, faster, healthier, stronger, because of the excess of nutrients left by the chickpea,” says López.

The company has two supply chains in Guatemala and México. In Guatemala, Yummus buys chickpeas from 75 small-scale, rural farmers – for whom Yummus’ business is a real lifeline during the dry season, when traditional crops suffer, and water is expensive. “Chickpeas are drought-resistant,” explains López, “and they grow at a time of the year when farmers don’t have other traditional options, because it’s so dry. Compared to corn or soybeans, which you have to water every day or two days, chickpea survives with much less water, in desert-like conditions.”