HomeRe-/LaunchLondon and Barcelona-based GourmetOrigins launches upmarket food marketplace

London and Barcelona-based GourmetOrigins launches upmarket food marketplace

Last Thursday, GourmetOrigins.com was launched as an online marketplace for quality foods and beverages (Update – January 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this name and we therefore deactivated the link).

Although the company just launched this new site, the story of this Barcelona and London-based startup starts further back; in 2010, the two founders launched the very first version of GourmetOrigins.com, which was quite different from the current site, insofar that almost everything bar the name has changed. At that time, it was mainly a content-based online guide about European foods with ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ and other geographical indications of origin (hence the name!).

The founders then decided that they needed to pivot the project and embrace a marketplace model, which they did with the support of their investors at The Openfund. They shut down the site for a few months while they completely redesigned the user experience, the functionality and the look of the site. With this in mind, you could say that last Thursday, GourmetOrigins.com was ‘reborn’ with an entirely new look.

The founding team at GourmetOrigins.com consists of Miquel Ros and Alex Wareing. In preparation for this article we asked Miquel Ros about their goals for GourmetOrigins.com in the near future. He replied: “We have launched a basic version of our marketplace, but we would like to become the reference website for all those foodies that wish to get products that are unique, but that are also interested in learning about each food beyond what there is in the label. With this aim, we will add in the short-term a lot more contextual information about each of our products, producers and tools to help users get the “story” and what is special about each product we feature. We also expect to increase our coverage really soon (at the moment only users in the UK and Spain can place orders and the same goes for producers that wish to be listed).”

We then asked Miquel Ros what next languages or markets they would like to enter, if they succeed. He stated: “We would like GourmetOrigins.com to have Europe-wide reach, this has been in our minds since day one. Our site is currently available in English and Spanish, but we are already working to add new countries and languages, starting with Europe’s largest consumer markets.”

At GourmetOrigins.com, producers of good food can sign up for free, and there are no fixed charges. GourmetOrigins only collects a commission whenever there is a sale (being 20% of the retail price excluding transport costs). The startup collects payments, arranges the shipments and transfers the proceeds of sales to the bank account of its sellers on a monthly basis.

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Thomas Ohr
Thomas Ohr
Thomas Ohr is the "Editor in Chief" of EU-Startups.com and started the blog in October 2010. He is excited about Europe's future, passionate about new business ideas and lives in Barcelona (Spain).
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