FDA Recalls and Enforcement Scraper (openFDA)

Search FDA food, drug and device recalls and enforcement reports and export clean, flat records.

Get structured recall data from the FDA's openFDA platform as JSON, CSV or Excel, or call it as a tool from Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or any MCP client. Built on the official openFDA enforcement API, so it does not break when the website changes. Pay only for the records you receive.

What you get

One record per recall/enforcement report with the fields people actually filter on: product type (food, drug or device), recall number, status, classification (Class I, II or III), product description, reason for recall, recalling firm, city, state and country, recall initiation date, FDA classification date, report date, termination date, event ID, distribution pattern, code/lot information, product quantity, whether the recall was voluntary or mandated, and how the firm was first notified. Dates are converted to plain YYYY-MM-DD.

Every result is a flat record with stable field names, so it drops straight into a spreadsheet, a database or an AI agent's context.

Why use this instead of the website

• Search food, drug and device recalls in one run, with keyword, classification, status, state, firm and date filters
• Pagination handled for you, with automatic retries and polite rate limiting
• Results in JSON, CSV, Excel or via API, or piped into Zapier, Make, n8n and Google Sheets
• Works as an MCP tool, so AI agents can check for recalls on demand
• No browser, no proxies, no personal data: fast runs and a tiny cost per result
• Monitoring made easy: set "Reported after" to yesterday and schedule the Actor daily to catch new recalls

Input

Field	Type	Default	Meaning
productTypes	array	food, drug, device	Which openFDA databases to search (one query per type)
query	string		Free-text keywords searched in the product description and reason for recall
classification	array	all	Any of Class I, Class II, Class III
status	array	all	Any of Ongoing, Completed, Terminated, Pending
state	string		Two-letter U.S. state code of the recalling firm
recallingFirm	string		Company name
reportedAfter	date		Only recalls reported on or after YYYY-MM-DD
reportedBefore	date		Only recalls reported on or before YYYY-MM-DD
apiKey	string (secret)		Optional free openFDA API key; see Limits below
maxResults	integer	100	Cap on reports saved, across all selected product types. You are charged per report, so this caps your cost.

Example input:

{
  "productTypes": ["food"],
  "query": "salmonella",
  "classification": ["Class I"],
  "reportedAfter": "2026-01-01",
  "maxResults": 200
}

Output

Example result:

{
  "productType": "food",
  "recallNumber": "F-1234-2026",
  "status": "Ongoing",
  "classification": "Class I",
  "productDescription": "Frozen Spinach, 10 oz bags",
  "reasonForRecall": "Potential Salmonella contamination",
  "recallingFirm": "Example Foods Inc.",
  "city": "Salinas",
  "state": "CA",
  "country": "United States",
  "recallInitiationDate": "2026-06-01",
  "centerClassificationDate": "2026-06-10",
  "reportDate": "2026-06-15",
  "terminationDate": null,
  "eventId": "90123",
  "distributionPattern": "Nationwide",
  "codeInfo": "Lot 12345, Best by 08/2026",
  "productQuantity": "12,000 cases",
  "voluntaryMandated": "Voluntary: Firm Initiated",
  "initialFirmNotification": "Press Release",
  "moreCodeInfo": null
}

Field reference: productType, recallNumber, status, classification, productDescription, reasonForRecall, recallingFirm, city, state, country, recallInitiationDate, centerClassificationDate, reportDate, terminationDate, eventId, distributionPattern, codeInfo, productQuantity, voluntaryMandated, initialFirmNotification, moreCodeInfo. All dates are YYYY-MM-DD or null.

Pricing

Pay per event. You are charged $1.50 per 1,000 records saved to the dataset, plus a fraction of a cent per run start. Nothing is charged for results you do not receive. Set "Max total charge per run" in the run options to cap spending on any run. When a run reaches your cap it stops cleanly and keeps everything it already saved.

Rough guide: 1,000 records cost $1.50 and take about 20 seconds.

Use it from an AI agent (MCP)

This Actor is available as an MCP tool through the Apify MCP server. Add it to your client, then ask the agent for the data in plain language.

Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor (mcp.json / claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=brightpath-data/openfda-recalls",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

ChatGPT and other clients that support remote MCP servers: add https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=brightpath-data/openfda-recalls as a connector with your Apify token.

Example prompt once connected: "Find Class I food recalls reported this year for salmonella and list the firm, product and reason for each."

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/brightpath-data~openfda-recalls/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"productTypes":["food"],"query":"salmonella","maxResults":100}'

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("brightpath-data/openfda-recalls").call(run_input={"productTypes": ["food"], "query": "salmonella", "maxResults": 100})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Limits and fair use

• Up to 25,000 records per run (openFDA's own pagination limit), across all selected product types combined.
• Without an API key, openFDA allows 1,000 requests per day per IP address, shared across everyone using this infrastructure, which can occasionally cause a run to fail on a busy day. A free key from open.fda.gov raises that to 120,000 requests per day for your key alone; paste it into the "openFDA API key" field. Both cases allow 240 requests per minute.
• A search with zero matches is not an error: openFDA returns a 404 for that case, and this Actor treats it as zero results and finishes normally.
• openFDA data can lag or differ slightly from the FDA's official recall listings; it is not itself the official FDA record.

Data source and legal

Data comes from openFDA, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's public API platform, through its official enforcement endpoints, which require no key for light use. The data is U.S. government public domain data. openFDA notes that its data may not be fully up to date with the FDA's official records; consult FDA.gov directly for legal or regulatory purposes. This Actor collects public, non-personal data only and does not bypass logins, paywalls or access controls. You are responsible for how you use the data.

Support

Found a problem or need a field added? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Fixes for broken runs are prioritized.