Price comparison site mySupermarket.com has pledged to take the mystery out of supermarket offers and highlight when a deal really is a deal.

This week, it launched a new initiative called Savvy Buys, which it claimed would let shoppers see whether a special offer was a good deal or not and cut through “fancy marketing or dubious supermarket pricing strategies”.

The Savvy Buys tool uses price tracking technology to spot when popular grocery items are at least 30% cheaper than they have been in the previous 12 months.

An offer will only get the mySupermarket endorsement if the product: is not available significantly cheaper elsewhere has been on shelf for at least four months is a commonly bought item and the deal offers a minimum saving of 50p.

“Shoppers often complain to us about feeling left in the dark about supermarket offers. Without knowing what the real everyday price of a product is, they don’t know whether a deal is really worth having,” said mySupermarket business development VP James Foord.

“With our knowledge of prices and promotions we can tell consumers whether something is worth buying today.”

Foord said he was surprised at the high number of offers that qualified as a Savvy Buy

The website also provided a lot more information on products that did not qualify as great deals, he added. On all products, shoppers will be able to see the average price during the past year, the highest price and the current price.

“There are a lot of products sitting above the average price, which shoppers can now see,” said Foord.

“But they can also see the fluctuation of product prices, so if a certain product is high this week they will be able to predict it will come back down pretty soon.”

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