New website helps parents track down in-stock baby formula near them
Jun 22, 2022, 4:47 PM | Updated: Jun 23, 2022, 3:54 pm
FILE: Nearly empty shelves of baby formula are pictured at a Reams in Sandy on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Photo credit: Kristin Murphy/Deseret News.
SALT LAKE CITY — A new website helps parents quickly find in-stock baby formula near them, for free. Demand for this infant formula has been high because of recent national shortages.
Gabe Wight created Findingformula.org, which pulls data from Walmart and Target to find formula inventory across the United States. The team behind Findingformula.org says they will soon include data from Walgreens and CVS.
A driving factor in making Findingformula.org was a personal one for Wight. His nephew can only have one type of formula due to medical conditions. Therefore, for Wight’s nephew and for so many others, it’s vital to have a fast way to find a specific formula.
According to the website, the goals behind FindingFormula.org are to help parents feed their babies and relieve stress. They also hope to help parents spend more time with their babies.
Findingformula.org is built on Webdata, a platform founded by Wight. It is programmed to “grab” eCommerce data from a Utah-based business management company called Domo and the Webata platform.
Ben Schein, Vice President of Data Curiosity at Domo said that the new website is very user-friendly, helping parents find the right baby formula fast. Also, he said that the Findingformula.org site links directly to the store’s web pages. In turn, these show the different baby formulas each store has in stock.
Schein said the team plans to expand and collect data from more retailers in the future. He hopes FindingFormula.org is a helpful tool for parents searching for baby formula.
Stores across the nation have struggled with keeping baby formula in stock for months. Data from Datasembly shows rates of out-of-stock baby formula rose from 11% in November 2021 to 31% in early April 2022.
