About ChisanLook closer. There is so much here.
Restoring the value of local food in a world changing at high speed.
How Chisan works
Our philosophy
Local production. Local connection.
Chisan is inspired by the Japanese concept of chisan-chisho (地産地消): local production for local consumption.
We believe that the most advanced technology is only meaningful when it serves what is tangible: the land, real food, and the craft of those who produce it.
The origin
The paradox of what is near
Travel lets us taste the identity of a place: a shepherd’s cheese, wine from a small plot, oil from a family mill.
Back home, finding the people making food just a few kilometres away can be surprisingly difficult. They are nearby, yet their work is not always easy to discover.
Chisan grows from that curiosity: understanding places through their food and making the people who produce it more visible.
Independence
Principles of an independent project
Building Chisan as a solo creator preserves complete editorial freedom without commercial compromises.
No paid placement
No producer pays to be listed or to appear higher in searches. We do not sell sponsored rankings.
No intermediation or data monetization
Chisan does not take sales cuts or commercialize producer contacts. Verified public data is maintained as a community resource.
Evidence-based editorial review
We do not scrape or import bulk registries blindly. Every published unit is verified against public evidence and official records.
Local Food Graph
Connecting knowledge to bring us closer to the source.
Behind every food are people, places and skills. We are building the Local Food Graph to bring this scattered information together and make it useful to people who want to discover, produce or work with local food.
A graph is a network of connected information: who produces a food, where they make it and what we know about its origin. Chisan organizes producers, products and places with stable identities, checked sources and documented relationships. Each profile keeps the context of what we know and what remains to be learned.
Today this foundation supports Chisan’s catalog, maps and search. It also lets connected AI assistants look up producers and recorded products and link to their profiles. Purchases and visits are arranged directly with the producer.
Producers and the community can propose information and corrections; editorial judgment decides what is published. AI helps research and organize sources, while human review retains responsibility for published facts.
As coverage, depth and quality grow, this foundation can help new tools understand local food better. That is our ambition for the age of AI agents: to help more people find small producers and understand where their food comes from, including through services beyond Chisan.
- 14,545published producers
- 4,191municipalities with at least one producer
- 39,678source references behind our decisions
- 13,673distinct websites among those references
Figures for the Spanish catalog, calculated from its published profiles and editorial evidence whenever the website is updated.
Our way of working
Want to look a little closer?
Our sources, criteria and commitments, explained openly. Choose what you want to read.
From a possible producer to a stable public profile
Chisan combines source-backed research with reviewed contributions. Publication is a deliberate editorial decision, not an automatic import or a popularity ranking.
Discover
Public sources, producer contributions and community suggestions surface possible productive units. Each useful lead remains an area candidate — not a public profile — with its source, place clue and next unanswered question.
Review
For each candidate we resolve the public identity, productive place, material output, current own offer and overlap with the catalog. We then accept it, keep it in research with one concrete next question, route it, recognize an existing profile or close it with evidence.
Publish
Accepted facts are materialized in area CSV files. Decision evidence retains the sources relied on for admissions and closed outcomes; unresolved candidates remain research instead of becoming speculative profiles.
Keep current
Corrections, producer requests and catalog changes are reviewed before publication. No request made on the deployed website writes directly to the public catalog.
The databases behind the catalog
No Chisan producer comes from a single database. We cross-check official registers, regulatory councils, regional directories and each producer's own channels, recording what each source supports and when we checked it.
Official registers and open data
They confirm identities, authorized activities, addresses and closures. Each register supports only what it publishes: a food-safety registration does not show that a product is on sale today.
- Registro General Sanitario de Empresas Alimentarias y Alimentos (AESAN) (opens in a new tab)
- Productors adherits a la venda de proximitat (Generalitat de Catalunya) (opens in a new tab)
- Indústries agroalimentàries de Catalunya (Generalitat de Catalunya) (opens in a new tab)
- Registro de Venta Directa de Castilla-La Mancha (opens in a new tab)
- Venta directa (Govern de les Illes Balears) (opens in a new tab)
- Registro de Artesanos Alimentarios (Junta de Castilla y León) (opens in a new tab)
- Artesanía alimentaria (Gobierno de Aragón) (opens in a new tab)
- Boletín Oficial del Registro Mercantil (BORME) (opens in a new tab)
Designations of origin and organic production
Regulatory councils and certification bodies publish who is registered and what they certify. They help us discover producers and check what they make.
- DOCa Rioja (opens in a new tab)
- D.O. Cava (opens in a new tab)
- Consell Regulador de la DOQ Priorat (opens in a new tab)
- IGP Faba Asturiana (opens in a new tab)
- COPAE (Asturias) (opens in a new tab)
- CBPAE (Illes Balears) (opens in a new tab)
- CRAEGA (Galicia) (opens in a new tab)
- TRACES NT (Comisión Europea) (opens in a new tab)
Regional directories
Regional and provincial quality marks, provincial councils and cooperatives lead us to producers in each district and help confirm where they work.
- Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España (opens in a new tab)
- Tierra de Sabor (Castilla y León) (opens in a new tab)
- Reyno Gourmet (Navarra) (opens in a new tab)
- Venta directa y de proximidad de Navarra (opens in a new tab)
- Gastroteca (Catalunya) (opens in a new tab)
- Pon Aragón en tu mesa (opens in a new tab)
- Catálogo de Productores Locales de la Provincia de Badajoz (opens in a new tab)
- Sabores de la Provincia de Sevilla (opens in a new tab)
Maps and geographic references
They place each productive unit in its municipality and on the map. A geocoder suggests locations; publishing a point remains an editorial decision.
Producers, press and community
Each producer's websites, online shops and official social accounts show what it makes and offers today. Press, guides, food fairs and reviewed contributions bring new leads.
Who can be part of Chisan
Chisan publishes active, place-based identities for food or drink producers. A productive unit qualifies only when every criterion is supported by current public evidence.
A real public identity
A person, business, cooperative or collective can be named and distinguished from similar entities.
Material production
It grows, raises, catches, harvests, extracts, mills, ferments, roasts, bakes, preserves, distils, prepares or otherwise materially makes food or drink for people.
A current own offer
At least one resulting product reaches the public under an identity that remains attributable to the producer.
A productive place
The actual production activity can be assigned to one catalog area and municipality. A public street address is optional.
Connected evidence
Public sources connect the identity, productive activity, offer and place. A source that proves one claim does not silently prove the rest.
A current, distinct unit
Current evidence supports its activity, and the same productive unit is not already represented by another profile.
What does not prove production
These signals may help discover or corroborate a producer, but none earns inclusion on its own.
Registers and distinctions
Appearing in a registry, association, guide or map, or holding a seal or certification, is useful evidence only for the claims that source actually publishes.
Commercial presence
A shop, restaurant, café, office, market stall, sales channel or tasting room does not establish where or whether production occurs.
Brand and popularity
A brand mention, social profile, product listing or positive review does not identify a qualifying productive unit or determine editorial relevance.
Resale and service
Stocking, packing, branding, serving or reselling products made by others is not material production.
Review, correction and removal
Every suggestion and factual change is reviewed before publication. If essential evidence is missing, the proposed unit stays outside the public catalog while research continues.
If a published profile no longer meets the criteria, duplicates another unit or belongs in a different area, it is corrected, merged, moved or removed through a reviewed decision.
The criteria may evolve as the catalog expands. Existing profiles are reviewed against a changed criterion before any correction or removal.
Clear sources, stable identities and revisable decisions
The catalog is designed to be inspectable. It says what Chisan currently knows without turning uncertainty into marketing language or pretending that a review can never be improved.
Chisan publishes and maintains the catalog
Chisan is the source to cite for this catalog. We bring together public information and reviewed contributions in one stable profile for each producer.
Several sources inform our work
Beyond the databases named on this page, we draw on producer websites and source-backed contributions. We assess what each source supports and retain the evidence internally, without adding a source list to every profile or fact.
Candidate work accumulates
Area by area, open candidates retain the useful source and the next question. Closed exclusions and published-record merges leave a durable trace, while catalog checks prevent duplicate publication, so a new source pass builds on earlier research instead of restarting it.
Producer participation is visible
When a profile claim is approved, we show the confirmed relationship with its producer. This does not certify every fact; proposed changes still receive editorial review.
Dates have a specific meaning
Premium profiles can show the date of the last approved producer change. It records that update, not a complete recheck of every fact. A missing date does not imply recent verification.
Coverage is never presented as complete
A missing producer may simply not have been reviewed yet. Chisan does not infer quality, scale or relevance from inclusion or absence.
People can improve the catalog without weakening it
Anyone can point Chisan toward a correction or a producer that deserves review. Useful proposals identify the productive unit, explain the requested change and include current public sources.
Producers can use an account to claim the right profile and propose updates. Ownership authorizes participation; it does not replace evidence or editorial review.
Public discovery remains open
The public catalog can be browsed without an account. Accounts add favorites, ownership workflows and reviewed participation around the same public catalog.
Any paid producer offer must publish its price, scope and terms before it is activated. Paid access never determines catalog inclusion, ordering, verification or editorial copy.
AI assistants can read the same public catalog
Most artisanal food and drink producers lack websites with structured data, causing AI assistants to miss them or hallucinate their details. Chisan structures and verifies producer facts so any AI agent can discover and query them reliably. We provide a public, read-only Remote MCP server where assistants such as Claude can connect without an account or API key and answer with the same reviewed information shown on these pages.
Server URL (Streamable HTTP, no authentication): https://chisan.app/mcp
Chisan catalog coverage
Published countries, regions, areas, languages and categories.
Search Chisan producers
Producers by text, geography, category, online sales or distance from a point.
Search Chisan products
Individually recorded products and varieties that are currently visible.
Get Chisan producer
One producer profile with its reviewed products, photos, links and contact channels.
Compose a catalog query
Combine filters, text alternatives and nearby producers in one query, with checks of recorded certification and visit information. Missing facts remain unknown; visit dates and driving routes need confirmation.
Every tool only reads. None sends messages, books visits or places orders: contact and shop links are prepared for the person to use. Answers should cite the producer's Chisan profile. Missing information means unknown, and recorded prices are not live quotes or stock.
The server needs no account and keeps no prompts, locations or client identities. Coordinates sent with a search are used only to answer it. The same operations are available as a JSON API.
Who is behind Chisan
Enrique Pérez
Behind Chisan is Enrique Pérez, a physicist by training and a journalist specialising in technology and the digital economy. His work at Xataka and Xataka Móvil, travel and fatherhood shape the project.
I have spent over a decade following how technology changes our lives. Travel has always reminded me of what endures: places, their food and the people who make it possible.
Becoming a father has broadened that horizon. Chisan is my way of contributing to a more human, transparent future connected to what is nearby.
Connect with Enrique on LinkedIn
Community
An open invitation
Chisan begins with one person behind the code and initial curation, but its purpose is shared. The catalog grows and stays current through the contributions of people who know their local territory.
Whether you are a food producer, know a local craft that deserves discovery, or share this vision for the future, this space is for you.
Editorial photography: Alexis Presa, Sandie Clarke, leonie wise / Unsplash.