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UW grads start grocery website
Two alumni create site which helps people find the best food deals at Madison stores
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Two University of Wisconsin graduates combined their expertise in economics and mathematics to create a website to help consumers find the best deals on groceries in Madison.
UW alumni Joe Nelson and Andrew Kramp created flyerside.com, a website which enables grocery shoppers to search for the best prices in downtown Madison without hopping from store to store.
Nelson said he and his girlfriend came up with the idea to create the site when they recognized the monetary strain groceries had on their budget.
“If a person’s stopping by a store on the way back from work, they can go directly to site and see what the best things they can pick up are,” Kramp said.
Nelson said he contacted Kramp in 2006 and showed him a “crude” internal software he created, and Kramp was “floored” by the proposal.
Nelson added his work as an accountant helped him compile the data that was necessary to create the software.
Kramp said his education in economics allowed him to contribute to the further expansion and development of the website.
The website is divided into four sections: a search for grocery deals at a particular store, a search for a store with the best price for a particular item, a search for a specific grocery item, a search which offers recipes and the stores that offer the cheapest prices for the ingredients.
Kramp said the recipe link is the newest feature on the website.
“The site sees what good deals there are for ingredients and combines that to get best price on an entire recipe,” Kramp said. “The recipes have three, four, five ingredients you can get a good deal on.”
Nelson added the recipes for the website are taken from allrecipes.com.
Both men said they hope to create a deeper collaboration with allrecipes.com, eventually linking the recipe site directly onto their webpage.
However, flyerside.com can only display the price of groceries from local stores, Kramp said.
He added he wants to expand the geographic area of the site but realizes the quality of the database is his top priority.
According to Nelson, the local aspect of the website is beneficial to smaller grocery stores because it puts them on the radar.
“They don’t have any Internet presence, so it gives them good way to get data online,” he said.
Stores that are rated on the website include Copps, Sentry, Capitol Centre Market, Whole Foods, Dollar General, Pierce’s, Cub and Walgreens.
Nelson adding that he and Kramp are always looking to collaborate with new stores in the area.
Although the initial website was created about two years ago, Kramp said the site did not have a strong enough database to be viewed by the general public until recently.
After completely rebuilding the computer software hosting the webpage and completely rebuilding the site in January, Nelson said the webpage was routed for viewing by the public last October.
“A lot of sites can just list prices,” Nelson said. “But you need a site that can distinguish and compare the prices of food.”
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lame…. go to woodman’s
super walmart!!
Woodman’s is good, unless you want produce. That wilted crap from China will kill you. How hard would it be for Woodman’s to convert to edible produce?
I think it’s great and hope you keep it up. Not everyone (on Campus) who needs groceries has access to a car to take them to Woodman’s,Super Walmart, etc. By knowing the pricing at stores within walking distance one can decide whether it is “worth” it to shop there, bus-it or wait for a ride from a friend.
well if you just wanna go shopping close minded and blindly good for you. but id rather go on the website and save me some money, espicially how the economy is.