Hunting for grocery bargains can feel impossible when every major chain in Ontario now charges a fortune for even basic staples, but the creators of a new app are hoping to help shoppers cut costs at the register.

Many Penny is shaping up to be another useful tool in the arsenal to try and find remotely affordable items at Loblaws, Metro, Walmart, Food Basics, the Real Canadian Superstore and more, offering grocery price comparisons of tons of items across various brands.

The data is region-specific for places across Canada, allowing users to browse sticker prices for food at the stores closest to them, as well as set their most-frequented stores.

Searching for an item shows the current prices of different brands (with photos, too) at specific store locations you've selected so that you can make the best choice.

While the app is not yet flawless — a search for hummus, for example, yielded many different types of hummus, but also other products that weren't exactly hummus — it has a ton of features that are being perfected each day as the app grows.

"We're continually improving it — we added price drop alerts last week, with more features in the pipeline. We're also looking at adding even more stores and smaller chains to the database," says Jake Brooks, the tech mind behind the Victoria, B.C.-based platform.

As of the time of publication, Many Penny offers real-time price comparisons across major Canadian grocery chains, price drop alerts, price tracking abilities and personalized shopping lists.

"We also offer unique features such as barcode scanning for quick price comparisons and an optimized route planner to streamline the shopping process," Brooks adds.

Greater Toronto Area Grocery Price Comparison
byu/app_manypenny intoronto

A chart shared by the Many Penny team to Reddit this week based on their data shows the cost of a standard shop for everything from fruit and canned goods to meat and bread at various grocers across the GTA (given as ranges due to multiple locations considered, while the app will show specific prices at specific outposts).

Surprisingly, while the worst Loblaws prices added up to the highest total (of $141.31 for 20 things), others weren't far behind: City Market charged up to $140.04 for the same list, while Independent charged up to $139.12, depending on the location.

And, some Loblaws had lower prices than competitors, as the range for the whole list started at $75.29 at GTA Loblaws stores, the second-lowest of all 10 chains included (Metro's range was $97.29, up to $119.61 for the same items).

Notably, Sobeys is absent from the app, due to the fact that the team sources prices online, and the supermarket's prices as seen on its Voilà online shopping experience prices do not accurately reflect what is in store.