A Weekly Price Tool That Helps Welfare Centres Protect Meal Budgets

The price list started building up every week

The Seoul Metropolitan Government visits traditional markets in each district to survey actual selling prices for 16 agricultural, fisheries, and livestock items. The data includes the market name, district, item, variety, unit, quantity, sales specification, price, and survey date, making it possible to distinguish prices for the same item when its specifications differ.

The data is surveyed once a week and updated on Tuesdays. Until 2024, only the final week of each month was published from the weekly surveys. Since 2025, the full set of weekly survey data has been available. That makes it possible to follow price movements every week instead of once a month.

The new information page states that the dataset contains about 1.3 million records dating back to 2013. Older and recent prices can be viewed together, but the publication interval differs before 2024 and from 2025 onward. Do not directly compare record counts or weekly averages across those periods.

The current raw dataset covers traditional markets. Large supermarket prices were removed from the dataset on 27 March 2023, so this dataset alone cannot support a service that compares recent traditional-market and large-supermarket prices. Even when using Seoul’s separate market-and-supermarket comparison screen, check that the survey date and product specification match.

The data can be downloaded as files or collected automatically by software using a defined format. Automated collection requires an authentication key from Seoul Open Data Plaza, the city’s public-data portal, and returns up to 1,000 records at a time. It is released under Korea Open Government License Type 1, which allows commercial use and modification with attribution, so it can also serve as input for a paid service.

The new budget belongs to the people managing meal costs

Consider one person: a dietitian at a small senior welfare centre in Seoul who plans weekly menus and buys ingredients. Their performance is not about finding the single cheapest item. It is about securing the required quantities within a fixed meal budget while reducing menu changes and budget overruns.

Suppose next week’s menu includes cabbage, onions, pork, and eggs. The person checks supplier price lists, looks up the previous purchase price, and considers another menu or supplier if an item has suddenly become expensive. Without an organised local-market reference price, it is difficult to judge whether a current quote is high, even after repeated calls and document checks.

Connect the weekly price data and the work changes in one place. After the person enters a menu and required quantities, the service can show recent prices from markets in the relevant district, last month’s range, and items with noticeable increases. They can consider another surveyed item already suitable for the menu instead of more expensive cabbage, or decide which supplier quote to question first.

The new budget here is closer to the operating-tool budget of welfare centres and care facilities than to an individual consumer’s app subscription. The likely approver is not the dietitian but the facility director or operating organisation, although each institution’s approval process must be confirmed. “Warn us early about budget overruns and leave a record of purchasing decisions” is a more direct reason to buy than “find the lowest price.”

The sales approach changes too. Instead of starting with a consumer price-comparison app supported by advertising, begin by taking one facility’s weekly menu and purchase list and producing a price-alert report. For an organisation that operates multiple facilities, later show differences in purchase prices between facilities and items that repeatedly rise in price on one screen.

The limits of the price data are also clear. Confirmed fields in the raw data include market, item, specification, price, district, and inspection date. Whether it provides same-day inventory, delivery fees, credit terms, or quality information needs further verification. The service should narrow down the items and markets to check first, rather than automatically selecting a supplier. The final call and quality judgment should remain with a person.

The scope of 16 items is also a constraint. Do not sell it as a complete meal-service system that manages every ingredient; too many gaps would remain. Start by alerting users only about surveyed items whose price changes affect menu costs, and let facilities enter supplier quotes directly for everything else.

Elsewhere, services built decision processes rather than just price lookups

Menor Preço Nota Gaúcha, operated in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state, lets users search nearby stores using actual transaction prices recorded on electronic receipts. Users can find recent prices by product name or barcode, and compare each store’s total for a full shopping list. It is operated by the state tax authority and a public information-technology institution, and consumers use it for free.

According to the operator, monthly users exceeded 68,000 in 2026 and cumulative searches exceeded 190 million. Menor Preço uses recent transaction prices based on electronic receipts, while the Seoul data surveys 16 items once a week. In Seoul, matching the service to weekly purchase planning is more realistic than promising the same level of real-time information.

Price Kaki, from the Consumers Association of Singapore, combines prices submitted by supermarkets with consumer reports. It offers nearby-store comparisons, discount information, price-change alerts, and unit-price comparisons based on equivalent quantities, without charging users.

The service was tested in three areas in 2019 before expanding nationwide in 2020. At the time of nationwide expansion, it covered 278 supermarkets and about 4,000 household-essential prices, while downloads during the trial exceeded 34,000. It verifies consumer reports before adding them and also operates a photo-submission function.

Quién es Quién en los Precios, from Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency, has surveyors collect prices at major stores on weekdays. Users choose a city and item, then compare the lowest-price store and basket totals. The price data is also available as files.

The service covers more than 3,000 products and has accumulated more than 250 million price observations since 1999. All three cases are free for consumers. For a small paid service in Seoul, simple price lookup is not enough; it needs features such as budget alerts, reports, and purchase records that reduce institutional work.

Four things you could build now

1. Welfare-centre meal-cost alerts

What: Select surveyed items in next week’s menu, show recent district prices and last month’s range, and flag items that may disrupt the budget first.
User: A dietitian at a small Seoul welfare centre who manages both weekly senior-meal menus and ingredient orders.
Why now: Since 2025, weekly data has been published, making it easier to match a weekly menu schedule than a month-end price list.
First screen: Place an “Upload next week’s menu” button beside three slots for items whose prices changed most this week.

2. A purchasing call list for side-dish shops

What: Enter required items and quantities, see recent surveyed prices at markets in nearby districts, and create an order for markets to call today.
User: The owner of a neighbourhood side-dish shop whose weekly ingredient use has risen after starting delivery or group orders.
Why now: Reusable market-level and specification-level prices are available at no cost, reducing calls to multiple places without any reference point.
First screen: Place item and required-quantity fields next to a list titled “Markets where inventory needs to be confirmed by phone.”

3. A group-buying preparation board for care facilities

What: Combine next week’s required quantities across multiple facilities and show recent price differences by district, helping users choose items for a joint quote request.
User: A staff member at an operating organisation that manages purchasing for several day-care centres or welfare facilities.
Why now: The price data can be reused commercially and accumulates in the same format every week, creating a reference price before group buying.
First screen: Show total required quantities by facility alongside a list of “Candidates for this week’s joint quote request.”

4. Traditional-market price explanation cards

What: When a merchant enters this week’s selling price, generate a short card for customers that compares it with the Seoul survey range.
User: Traditional-market merchants and merchant-association managers selling agricultural, fisheries, and livestock products with frequently changing prices.
Why now: A public reference price, shown with its source, lets merchants explain prices with a survey date and specification rather than simply claiming they are expensive or cheap.
First screen: Place a field for today’s price beside a card preview marked “Based on Seoul’s most recent survey date.”

What to check today

Call one senior welfare centre in Seoul and ask the meal-service manager: “Which items rose much more than expected last month, and what documents and calls did you go through to check prices?” If they describe a verification process with three or more steps within 30 minutes and say they would review a weekly price alert before finalising the menu, the first service is worth testing. Finally, ask who approves payment for the tool. That confirms who owns the new budget.

Why this matters where you are

This is a Korean case built on Seoul’s weekly traditional-market surveys, its public-data access system, and a license that permits commercial reuse with attribution. In your market, check whether comparable food-price data exists, how often it is updated, which retail channels it covers, and whether its license allows reuse. If consumer price lookup is already free, a more useful paid tool may be one that helps an institution document and act on purchasing decisions.