USDA FoodData Central Nutrition Scraper

Extract complete nutrition data from the USDA FoodData Central database — the official US government source for food composition data. Covers 2M+ foods across the Branded, Foundation, SR Legacy, FNDDS, and Survey databases, with full nutrient panels (140+ nutrients per food), GTIN/UPC barcodes, ingredient lists, serving sizes, and household portion data.

What you get

Each record contains:

• fdc_id — USDA FDC unique identifier
• description — Food name / product name
• data_type — Source database (Branded, Foundation, SR Legacy, Survey_FNDDS, Experimental)
• brand_owner / brand_name — Brand information for commercial products
• gtin_upc — GTIN or UPC barcode for retail product matching
• ingredients — Full ingredients list as printed on the label
• serving_size / serving_size_unit — Serving size with unit
• food_category — USDA food category
• market_country — Country where the product is marketed
• published_date — When the food record was published in FDC
• nutrients — JSON array of all nutrients: [{name, amount, unit, derivation}] — includes calories, macros (protein, fat, carbs, fiber, sugars), all vitamins, all minerals, amino acids, and fatty acid breakdown
• portions — JSON array of household measures: [{modifier, gramWeight}]
• food_attributes — JSON array of additional food attributes

Modes

Search mode (default)

Search for foods by keyword across all or a specific USDA database.

{
  "query": "cheddar cheese",
  "dataType": "Branded",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Direct lookup mode

Fetch specific foods by their FDC ID for full detail data.

{
  "fdcIds": ["454004", "747448", "321358"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Input options

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Search keyword (e.g. "apple", "whole wheat bread"). Leave blank for default Foundation search.
dataType	string	Filter to one database: Branded, Foundation, SR Legacy, Survey_FNDDS, or Experimental.
fdcIds	string[]	List of FDC IDs for direct lookup. When provided, overrides query and dataType.
apiKey	string	Your own api.data.gov API key (1,000 req/hr). Leave blank to use the built-in key.
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of food records to return.

API key

This actor uses the USDA FoodData Central API via api.data.gov. A free API key is pre-configured for seamless operation. For very large runs (1,000+ requests per hour), provide your own free key from api.data.gov/signup.

Use cases

• Nutrition apps — Enrich recipe databases with verified USDA nutritional data
• Retail product enrichment — Join GTIN/UPC barcodes with full nutrient panels
• Food science research — Bulk extraction of Foundation or SR Legacy reference data
• LLM grounding — Build a nutrition knowledge base for AI applications
• Diet / health apps — Power macro tracking with government-verified data
• Food database deduplication — Match commercial products across Branded database

Data sources

All data is sourced directly from USDA FoodData Central via the official public API. FDC is the US government's integrated food composition database, maintained by the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Limits

• The search API returns up to 2M+ Branded foods, 7,000+ Foundation foods, 260,000+ SR Legacy entries, 9,000+ FNDDS entries
• Rate limit: 1,000 requests/hour with a registered key; 30/hour on DEMO_KEY
• Maximum page size: 200 foods per API call