A new website helps users get a good deal on groceries, reports Rosita Boland

Alan and Gwen Clayton's new company started as an idea over a few Christmas drinks with their neighbours. "The discussion got round to the cost of living and how we all felt we were being ripped off," says Alan Clayton, who is based in Kinsale, in Co Cork. "We talked about how, on the Internet, you could buy flights and cost many products but couldn't find out the cost of a weekly shopping basket in Ireland."

Clayton had spent six years as a marketing manager for Asda, the British supermarket chain, and another eight in the health-food business, so he felt he could help to develop a consumer website. "Hopefully, it will provide some insight for consumers to the supermarket trade and give them a better understanding of how product placement works," he says.

The core of www.shoppingbill.com, which went online this month, is a shopping basket of 41 basic grocery products, including baked beans, cornflakes, tea bags, milk, pasta, sugar and sunflower oil, at Aldi, Lidl, Dunnes Stores, Superquinn, SuperValu and Tesco Ireland. It gives up to three prices: for well-known brands, supermarket brands and the cheapest brands in each supermarket.

The prices for the baskets of 41 well-known brands were remarkably consistent: Tesco charged €67.17, Dunnes Stores €68, SuperValu €68.04 and Superquinn €68.68. Aldi and Lidl sell too few well-known brands to make a comparison. There was much more of a difference between the prices of the cheapest brands. These baskets cost €32.61 at Tesco, €34.05 at Dunnes, €34.55 at Lidl, €35.05 at Aldi, €44.03 at Superquinn and €44.38 at SuperValu.

The website also features special offers, recipes, consumer reports - the first is on the price of milk - and a discussion forum. It has joined up with www.irishfuelprices.com to offer a snapshot of fuel prices around the country. Soon www.shoppingbill.com hopes to include dedicated areas for baby products, personal-care products and alcohol.

How useful consumers find the site will probably depend on the kind of detail they're looking for. There is no information, for example, on whether the eggs the site gives prices for are battery farmed or free range. And although one cheese features on the list - Mitchelstown mild cheddar - it doesn't tell you how much other types of cheese cost. So the basket of basics might be a bit too basic for some shoppers.

The website plans to update its prices weekly. Ultimately, it hopes, supermarkets will supply it directly. Until then it uses supermarket websites and personal visits. It hopes to make money by selling advertising space on the site.

So who does Clayton think will use the website? "Anyone currently doing their shopping online, people interested in special offers and people who want bargains," he says.

Tesco and Superquinn have offered online shopping since 2000. By March this year Tesco had 110,000 registered online customers; Superquinn, which has fewer shops, had 55,000. "We would have queries with some of their prices," a spokesperson from Superquinn says. "We've checked some of the Euroshopper prices and found some discrepancies, but hopefully these can be sorted out. But the problem with shopping surveys is always in comparing like with like, especially when it comes to something like meat."

www.shoppingbill.com