As a group of friends we love cooking, eating and sharing recipes. But we all had the same problem – where to get the ingredients to make the dishes we love and the recipes we want to try.

In Barcelona, our local grocers and supermarkets have fantastic Mediterranean products. But we also want Asian greens and oyster sauce to make stir-fries, halloumi and tempeh for barbecues, spices for curries and things like gluten-free bread, organic flours and artisanal beers.

We also want to support our local shops – they’re our neighbours and part of our community. They’re convenient, we see what we’re buying, we can speak to someone working there, and we can take our own bag to reduce waste.

A Google search for a product finds restaurants, recipes and online shops. It searches the whole internet for information that isn’t even actually online, it’s in our collective heads.

We started with lots of actual legwork – walking around Barcelona, exploring shops and remembering when we found exciting products. We shared our knowledge between ourselves and with friends when they had questions.

Next, we created a Facebook group called Ingredient Hunters Barcelona where group members ask and share where to get products they’re looking for. It is super friendly and helpful and has grown steadily, but Facebook has its limitations so questions are often repeated as posts get lost after a couple of days. It still wasn’t perfect.