What lowtein does

Each week, we pull the weekly ad from every major grocery chain that serves your city. We extract the price, item name, validity dates, and source link. We normalize prices to a common unit (per pound for meat, per litre for milk, per 100 g for cheese, per dozenfor eggs) so different retailers' pack sizes can be ranked side-by-side. Then we show you the cheapest.

Where the data comes from

We poll every major grocery chain that publishes a weekly ad in your area — national chains like Kroger, ALDI, and Publix alongside the regional banners and local independent grocers specific to your metro. Not every chain operates in every city — what you see is what's actually available where you are.

Every price links back to that retailer's own adpage. You can verify any claim by clicking the source link. We don't republish flyer images or compete with the retailers; we just point you at the deals they're already publishing.

Is this really the cheapest?

For each cut, we show you the entire ranking — tap a row to see every retailer we polled for that cut this week, with their prices. If we're cheapest by $1, the other retailers' prices are right there to verify. If we missed a retailer your city has, email contact@lowtein.com and we'll add them.

Is the price actually good?

When you tap a row, the expanded panel shows two independent reference points:

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics regional average— the Census-region monthly retail average for that cut (for your city's region), from the BLS Average Price Data series. Updates monthly; public-domain U.S. government data.
• Our weekly trend — the lowest price we observed across all retailers each week since we started tracking. Sharpens with every weekly refresh.

The two answer different questions. BLSsays "is this cheap compared to what people in your regiontypically pay?" — our trend says "is this cheap compared to recent weeks at the retailers we cover?" Together they make the savings claim falsifiable.

No AI guessing

Prices on lowtein are pulled directly from each retailer's structured ad data. No model is inferring or guessing prices. Where a flyer lists an item with no clear per-unit weight (e.g., a tray priced "$15" with no ounce count), we drop it from the comparison rather than estimate.

What's limited

• Some deals are store-app or loyalty-card only (digital coupons). We capture the regular weekly ad; member-only digital deals don't appear here yet.
• Pricing changes happen mid-week occasionally. We refresh weekly, so a mid-week markdown might not show up until the next refresh.
• Price history is short — we started tracking in May 2026, so "typical" comparisons get sharper every week.
• We rank by published price per unit. We don't weigh in on quality, freshness, or store conditions. We're showing arithmetic, not a recommendation.

No accounts, no ads

Lowtein is free. We don't require an account, run ads, sell data, or use affiliate links. The site is a side project run by one person on a small EC2 instance.