# BBC Good Food Recipe Scraper (`jungle_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper`) Actor Enumerate and scrape the full BBC Good Food recipe catalogue (~15K+ recipes) from sitemap discovery. Extracts structured recipe data including ingredients, instructions, UK nutrition panels, skill level, dietary tags, ratings, and schema.org/Recipe JSON-LD fields. - **URL**: https://apify.com/jungle\_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [BowTiedRaccoon](https://apify.com/jungle_synthesizer) (community) - **Categories:** AI, Developer tools - **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, NaN bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing Pay per event This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases. In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store. In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server. Actors are written with capital "A". ## How to integrate an Actor? If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects. You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready. The best way to integrate Actors is as follows. In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md): ```bash npm install apify-client ``` In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md): ```bash pip install apify-client ``` In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): ````bash # MacOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash # Windows irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex ```bash In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md). If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md). For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below. For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt). # README ## BBC Good Food Recipe Scraper ### Overview The **BBC Good Food Recipe Scraper** enumerates and extracts the full BBC Good Food recipe catalogue (~15,000+ recipes) using sitemap discovery. It captures rich structured data from each recipe page including ingredients, step-by-step instructions, the UK nutrition panel, BBC-specific skill levels, dietary tags, star ratings, and schema.org/Recipe JSON-LD fields. BBC Good Food is the largest free English-language recipe authority in the UK, with content covering everything from quick weeknight dinners to elaborate celebration cakes. Unlike generic multi-site scrapers that require you to supply URLs and drop BBC-specific fields, this actor discovers the entire corpus automatically and extracts every structured field the site provides. ### Features - **Full sitemap enumeration**: Walks the BBC Good Food sitemap index and collects every recipe URL across all quarterly recipe sitemaps (~15K+ recipes). - **BYO URL mode**: Supply specific recipe URLs via `startUrls` to scrape targeted recipes without a full crawl. - **schema.org/Recipe extraction**: Parses the embedded JSON-LD block on each page for all standard Recipe fields. - **BBC-specific fields**: Extracts skill level (Easy / More effort / A challenge), dietary tags (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, healthy, etc.), and the UK nutrition panel. - **Respectful crawling**: Honours the site's crawl-delay directive with conservative concurrency. - **Incremental-friendly**: Use `maxItems` to cap run size for incremental update workflows. ### Use Cases - Building recipe datasets for LLM fine-tuning or RAG pipelines. - Meal planning and nutrition app data ingestion. - Food-trend analytics using BBC's categorisation taxonomy and editorial dietary tags. - Competitive benchmarking for recipe content platforms. - Academic research on UK food culture and cooking trends. ### How It Works 1. **Sitemap discovery**: Fetches `https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/sitemap.xml` (a 260-child index) and filters to recipe-type sitemaps (e.g. `2026-Q2-recipe.xml`). 2. **URL collection**: Extracts all `/recipes/` URLs from matching sitemaps, capped at `maxItems`. 3. **Page extraction**: Fetches each recipe page and parses the `schema.org/Recipe` JSON-LD block plus supplemental BBC DOM fields. 4. **Output**: Stores one record per recipe in the Apify dataset. ### Input | Field | Type | Required | Description | |-------|------|----------|-------------| | `maxItems` | Integer | Yes | Maximum number of recipes to scrape. Set to `0` for the full corpus (15K+). Default: `10`. | | `startUrls` | Array | No | Specific BBC Good Food recipe URLs to scrape. Skips sitemap discovery when provided. | #### Example — Full sitemap run (capped) ```json { "maxItems": 500 } ```` #### Example — BYO URLs ```json { "startUrls": [ { "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake" }, { "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/iced-tea" } ], "maxItems": 10 } ``` ### Output One record per recipe. All fields sourced from schema.org/Recipe JSON-LD unless noted. | Field | Type | Description | |-------|------|-------------| | `slug` | String | URL slug (e.g. `easy-chocolate-cake`) | | `url` | String | Full recipe page URL | | `name` | String | Recipe title | | `author` | String | Recipe author name | | `description` | String | Short editorial description | | `recipe_category` | String | Category (e.g. Cake, Dinner, Drink) | | `recipe_cuisine` | String | Cuisine type (e.g. British, Italian) | | `recipe_yield` | String | Serving yield (e.g. "Serves 8") | | `prep_time` | String | Prep time as ISO 8601 duration (e.g. `PT20M`) | | `cook_time` | String | Cook time as ISO 8601 duration | | `total_time` | String | Total time as ISO 8601 duration | | `skill_level` | String | BBC skill rating: Easy / More effort / A challenge | | `recipe_ingredient` | Array | List of ingredient strings | | `recipe_instructions` | Array | List of step-by-step instruction strings | | `nutrition` | String | JSON-encoded per-serving nutrition data (kcal, fat, saturates, carbs, sugars, fibre, protein, salt) | | `aggregate_rating` | Number | Average star rating (1–5 scale) | | `rating_count` | Integer | Number of ratings | | `keywords` | Array | Editorial keyword tags | | `dietary_tags` | Array | Dietary suitability tags (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, healthy, etc.) | | `image_urls` | Array | Recipe image URLs | | `date_published` | String | Publication date (ISO 8601) | #### Example output record ```json { "slug": "easy-chocolate-cake", "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake", "name": "Easy chocolate cake", "author": "Miriam Nice", "description": "Master the chocolate cake with an airy, light sponge and rich buttercream filling...", "recipe_category": "Cake", "recipe_cuisine": "", "recipe_yield": "Serves 8-10", "prep_time": "PT30M", "cook_time": "PT25M", "total_time": "PT55M", "skill_level": "Easy", "recipe_ingredient": [ "225g unsalted butter, softened", "225g golden caster sugar", "4 large eggs" ], "recipe_instructions": [ "Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Butter two 20cm sandwich tins...", "Beat 225g softened unsalted butter and 225g golden caster sugar until fluffy..." ], "nutrition": "{\"calories\":\"546 calories\",\"fatContent\":\"31 grams fat\",\"saturatedFatContent\":\"19 grams saturated fat\",\"carbohydrateContent\":\"63 grams carbohydrates\",\"sugarContent\":\"51 grams sugar\",\"fiberContent\":\"1 grams fiber\",\"proteinContent\":\"5 grams protein\",\"sodiumContent\":\"0.5 milligram of sodium\"}", "aggregate_rating": 4.7, "rating_count": 2314, "keywords": ["Afternoon tea", "Celebration cake", "Chocolate cake"], "dietary_tags": [], "image_urls": ["https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/30/2020/08/easy_chocolate_cake-b62f92c.jpg?resize=440,230"], "date_published": "2020-08-21T00:00:00+00:00" } ``` ### Notes - **Crawl-delay**: BBC Good Food's `robots.txt` specifies a 12-second crawl delay. The actor respects this via low concurrency. Full-corpus runs (~15K recipes) will take several hours. - **New recipes**: The sitemap is indexed quarterly (e.g. `2026-Q2-recipe.xml`). Run periodically to capture newly published recipes. - **Ratings on new recipes**: Freshly published recipes may have no aggregate rating yet — `aggregate_rating` and `rating_count` will be `null`. - **Nutrition format**: The `nutrition` field is a JSON string. Parse it with `JSON.parse(record.nutrition)` to access individual nutrients. # Actor input Schema ## `sp_intended_usage` (type: `string`): Please describe how you plan to use the data extracted by this crawler. ## `sp_improvement_suggestions` (type: `string`): Provide any feedback or suggestions for improvements. ## `sp_contact` (type: `string`): Provide your email address so we can get in touch with you. ## `startUrls` (type: `array`): Optional list of specific BBC Good Food recipe URLs to scrape. When provided, skips sitemap discovery and scrapes only these URLs. Each entry should be a bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/ URL. ## `maxItems` (type: `integer`): Maximum number of recipes to scrape. Set to 0 for unlimited (full corpus). ## Actor input object example ```json { "sp_intended_usage": "Describe your intended use...", "sp_improvement_suggestions": "Share your suggestions here...", "sp_contact": "Share your email here...", "startUrls": [ { "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake" } ], "maxItems": 10 } ``` # Actor output Schema ## `results` (type: `string`): No description # API You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup. ## JavaScript example ```javascript import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client'; // Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token // Replace the '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "sp_intended_usage": "Describe your intended use...", "sp_improvement_suggestions": "Share your suggestions here...", "sp_contact": "Share your email here...", "startUrls": [ { "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake" } ], "maxItems": 10 }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("jungle_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper").call(input); // Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any) console.log('Results from dataset'); console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`); const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems(); items.forEach((item) => { console.dir(item); }); // 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs ``` ## Python example ```python from apify_client import ApifyClient # Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token # Replace '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "sp_intended_usage": "Describe your intended use...", "sp_improvement_suggestions": "Share your suggestions here...", "sp_contact": "Share your email here...", "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake" }], "maxItems": 10, } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("jungle_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"]) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{ "sp_intended_usage": "Describe your intended use...", "sp_improvement_suggestions": "Share your suggestions here...", "sp_contact": "Share your email here...", "startUrls": [ { "url": "https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake" } ], "maxItems": 10 }' | apify call jungle_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=jungle_synthesizer/bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer " ] } } } ``` ## OpenAPI specification ```json { "openapi": "3.0.1", "info": { "title": "BBC Good Food Recipe Scraper", "description": "Enumerate and scrape the full BBC Good Food recipe catalogue (~15K+ recipes) from sitemap discovery. Extracts structured recipe data including ingredients, instructions, UK nutrition panels, skill level, dietary tags, ratings, and schema.org/Recipe JSON-LD fields.", "version": "0.1", "x-build-id": "1J7VJudaUfpYnfTQk" }, "servers": [ { "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2" } ], "paths": { "/acts/jungle_synthesizer~bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-jungle_synthesizer-bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } }, "/acts/jungle_synthesizer~bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper/runs": { "post": { "operationId": "runs-sync-jungle_synthesizer-bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK", "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema" } } } } } } }, "/acts/jungle_synthesizer~bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper/run-sync": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-jungle_synthesizer-bbcgoodfood-recipe-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } } }, "components": { "schemas": { "inputSchema": { "type": "object", "required": [ "maxItems" ], "properties": { "sp_intended_usage": { "title": "What is the intended usage of this data?", "minLength": 1, "type": "string", "description": "Please describe how you plan to use the data extracted by this crawler." }, "sp_improvement_suggestions": { "title": "How can we improve this crawler for you?", "minLength": 1, "type": "string", "description": "Provide any feedback or suggestions for improvements." }, "sp_contact": { "title": "Contact Email", "minLength": 1, "type": "string", "description": "Provide your email address so we can get in touch with you." }, "startUrls": { "title": "Start URLs", "type": "array", "description": "Optional list of specific BBC Good Food recipe URLs to scrape. When provided, skips sitemap discovery and scrapes only these URLs. Each entry should be a bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/ URL.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "maxItems": { "title": "Max Items", "type": "integer", "description": "Maximum number of recipes to scrape. Set to 0 for unlimited (full corpus).", "default": 10 } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } } } ```