With this brilliant app, you can compare all supermarkets
Groceries are getting more expensive—that’s not news. But what about your personal supermarket favourites? The price of those can vary considerably from one supermarket to another. That’s why Sjoerd van der Hoorn built an app that lets you find out where you’ll get the best deal in just a few clicks.
Don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry: check. Make a shopping list: check. Bend down more often in the supermarket: check. Even if you follow all those sensible tips, you still end up paying through the nose at the supermarket. The Consumers’ Association did the maths: the most expensive supermarket is 11 per cent more expensive than the cheapest, and the price differences between own-brand and A-brand products can be as much as 80 per cent (seriously!).
Standard package or your own trolley
But, Sjoerd van der Hoorn discovered, that of course only applies to the standard shopping package the Consumers’ Association uses for its comparison. Sjoerd switched from Jumbo to Dirk and soon noticed: that saves him ten euros a month. But he couldn’t explain those savings using the Consumers’ Association’s research. Understandably so: Sjoerd’s groceries don’t resemble the Consumers’ Association’s standard shopping trolley.
Check your receipt
That gave him an idea. He put together a website, Check Je Bon, where you can enter your shopping list and discover at the press of a button where your groceries are cheapest. Do you prefer an A-brand? Then you can enter that too. And do you find it too much hassle to enter your shopping list step by step? Just take a till receipt and scan it. The app immediately shows you where you’re leaving money on the table—or perhaps you’re already doing perfectly well at your regular supermarket.
Go ahead and check
And now you may be thinking: is Sjoerd employed by Albert Heijn, or is he sponsored by Jumbo? No, really not. He built the website using open-source software, so everyone—well, people who know how to program—can check that he hasn’t incorporated hidden algorithms that slyly steer you towards Dirk or Lidl . ‘Supermarkets try to give their customers the impression that they always provide the best-quality products at the best price,’ he says. ‘Almost nobody switches supermarkets, except perhaps to pick up a special offer somewhere once in a while. To break that pattern, I want to use Checkjebon to give people a simple and objective way to see whether they could get a better deal elsewhere.’
Sounds good, right?
Want to try it?
