Italy’s SMS Consumatori - Food prices by SMS
by Imran Ali
Rising fuel costs and the growing affluence of 300m new middle-class Indian and Chinese citizens are driving a global food crisis, that’s affecting even developed countries such as Italy.
As a defense against hoarding and inflated pricing, Italy’s Department for Agriculture, Food & Forestry recently launched SMS Consumatori, a mobile service that tracks the price of around eighty common food items in categories ranging from dairy and meat products to produce
Shoppers simply text a product name to the service and receive pricing information by SMS which can be compared to prices in the store they’re shopping from.Interestingly, users can elect to track historical prices by create a grocery list of their common items that’s tracked from week to week as an average food budget.
Usage of the service is capped by a certain number of daily requests; a reasonable limitation, given most users won’t need to price-compare every item every day.
Such a service is perhaps even more valuable in less affluent countries where mobile penetration is very high - places such as Pakistan and Kenya where rising food prices are bing felt more acutely than in the West.
{ Originally covered by Springwise }
