Venezuelans who devote hours scouring supermarkets for increasingly scarce food basics and toilet paper have received some digital help thanks to a young software developer.

Jose Augusto Montiel's free Abasteceme application for Android mobile devices allows people to notify one another where flour, sugar, milk, cooking oil and toilet paper are for sale. It has been downloaded more than 12,000 times.

Stocks of basic items such as wheat, flour and butter have been running low throughout Venezuela. Economists blame government-imposed price control, while President Nicolas Maduro said greedy merchants are hoarding goods.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.