Citizen Developer Creates Price Comparison Tool to Fight Rising Food Prices in Austria

After hearing Austria’s labor minister discuss plans to build a new database for comparing food prices, Mario Zechner took matters into his own hands. Within two hours, he built the first prototype of a comparison system called Heisse Preise, which aggregated the prices of 22,000 items from the websites of major supermarket chains. The project has since grown, now including prices from 10 Austrian supermarket chains and four in neighboring countries, with over 177,000 items listed. Heisse Preise has also shed light on price changes by supermarkets and provided valuable data for the Austrian Federal Competition Authority’s investigations into the food industry.

Zechner’s tool has shown that major supermarkets closely monitor each other and quickly mirror price changes. This has led to calls for greater price transparency and new laws to make shops publish their price data. Furthermore, the emergence of DIY price comparison websites, such as Heisse Preise, has highlighted the need for a legal framework to govern the operation of these private tools. The Austrian government has decided against creating its own comparison tool and instead plans to establish regulations that would require supermarkets above a certain size to make basic food prices available.

The impact of Heisse Preise extends beyond just consumer savings. The Austrian National Library plans to archive the data, allowing startups and scientific institutions to explore new commercial and research opportunities. Overall, the tool has increased competition between grocery stores and provided essential information for macro- and microeconomic studies. Zechner himself is now focused on rewriting the website’s code and assisting others in using the open-source code to build comparison systems for other countries.

Source: This Website Exposes the Truth About Soaring Food Prices