Why did we make Sawcer?

It’s so hard to know what’s available in local shops.

When I first moved here I didn’t know where to get anything that wasn’t normal Spanish stuff in a normal Spanish supermarket. I asked friends but I didn’t really know many people. I ended up walking around and looking in shops and trying to remember where they were and what to get there.

I would go to Via Laietana for my salsa picantes and jalapeno chiles, Raval for Indian spices and Fort Pienc for Asian ingredients but as I explored more I started to notice the smaller speciality shops closer where I live, the little sections in local franchised supermarkets with specialist products – asian, gluten-free, bulk, organic.

These shops don’t have websites, or social media, so unless I happened upon it, or someone told me there was no way to know.

With Sawcer we can explore the neighbourhood shops without having to go into all of them. And we can more easily explore the world through cooking and eating. As cooks we have actually collected an encyclopaedic reference library in our brains of products and where to get them, Sawcer is the way to share that.

What is Sawcer?

Sawcer is a mobile application for Android and iPhone. There will also be a basic webpage where anyone can search for items but additional functionality like adding and saving to a list is only available in the app. Sawcer will be available in Spain with the focus on Barcelona. Early adopters are able to access other cities in Spain to gauge interest and create a first-user group in those cities.

Delivery, e-commerce, what is the monetisation?

A very popular question!

What we know now is that Sawcer will be a free app for users always.

What we will do first is create a community of people using the app. Then, based on what our users want from us and how they use the app, we will choose a path forward to pay for our expenses. We have a few ideas. Most likely it will be something like sponsored product posts, kind of how google has ads at the top when you do a search.

We will also provide a paid service to suppliers and producers to bulk upload items into multiple shops.

Why ingredients?

Because we love cooking and eating, and that’s what made the idea come about. Also people who cook are the best people, and we are missing this tool to make life easier.