04 Feb BBC: How two friends built a popular food website
Friends Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs gambled that creating the website they wanted to use but couldn’t find could be the recipe for a business success story.
In 2008 the two New Yorkers were disappointed that there wasn’t a one-stop website for food lovers that they liked, a place that contained everything from recipes to cookery videos, a cookware shop, culinary articles and travel guides.
“We – as two people who love cooking, are homebodies, love our homes – didn’t feel well served,” says Amanda. “We didn’t feel like there was any place that really spoke to us, and gave us everything we needed.”
At the time if you wanted recipes you typically went to one website, says Merrill, and if you wanted kitchen equipment you went to another, and so on.
So the two food writers and trained chefs decided to launch Food52.