Why Can't You Compare Products in the Index?

The Recurring Question

Since I published The Smart Shouter Food Price Index, one of the most common questions has been: "Why can't I search for a specific product?" or "Why can't I build a shopping cart and see where it's cheapest?"

Completely fair question. But the answer is simple.

The Index Wasn't Built for That

The Smart Shouter Index does one thing: tracks the overall trend of food prices in Israel. It doesn't try to tell you where to buy cheaper milk. It tries to tell you whether food prices are going up or down, at what rate, and in which region.

It's like the difference between a stock market index and investment advice. One tracks a trend, the other helps you make a specific decision.

But There Are Excellent Tools That Do Exactly That

If you want to compare prices at the individual product level or for an entire shopping cart, there are two excellent Israeli tools I recommend:

PriceZ

pricez.co.il — A well-established platform (since 2011) for comparing food prices. It lets you build a complete shopping list and find the cheapest supermarket in your area. It includes barcode scanning, price history, and list sharing with family members. It covers about 2,000 store branches and updates every hour.

CHP

chp.co.il — "Don't be a sucker" (a play on a Hebrew expression). A non-profit project that allows price comparison within a 10 km radius of your home. It processes 5–10 million records per day, displays your list organized by supermarket department, and sends alerts when a product you've flagged goes on sale. Completely free, no sign-up required.

Both are based on the same data that supermarket chains are required to publish by Israel's food pricing transparency law — the same source my index is built on. They just do something different and complementary with that data.