FDA Recalls Scraper & openFDA API: Food, Drug & Medical Device Recalls with Alerts

Get FDA recall data as clean JSON, CSV or Excel from the official openFDA enforcement report API: search food, dietary supplement, cosmetic, drug and medical device recalls by keyword, recalling firm, Class I/II/III, status, US state, country and dates, and get one flat row per recall with product, reason for recall, lot/code info, quantity, distribution, firm, dates, risk level, brand/generic names, NDC codes and an FDA link. Schedule it as a daily or weekly recall alert.

No browser, no login, no API key, no proxy. $0.50 per 1,000 recalls.

What you can use it for

• Food safety & retail compliance: every Listeria, Salmonella, undeclared allergen or foreign-material recall that touches your products, suppliers or states.
• Pharmacy & hospital recall monitoring: drug recalls with brand and generic names, NDC codes, lot numbers and Class I alerts.
• Medical device quality & regulatory teams: device recalls by firm, product code and device class, for vigilance, supplier audits and competitor tracking.
• Recall alerts: schedule it with Only new recalls and send new recalls to Slack, e-mail, Google Sheets or your QMS (Make, Zapier, n8n, webhooks).
• Supplier risk & due diligence: recall history of a company before you buy from, invest in or partner with it.
• Research, journalism, analytics and AI agents: normalised recall data for dashboards, trend analysis, LLMs and RAG.

How to use it

1. Pick categories (food, drug, device; all three by default) and optionally enter keywords (listeria, peanut, metformin, insulin pump) or recalling firms.
2. Optional filters: classification (Class I = most serious), status (ongoing, completed, terminated), US states, countries, voluntary vs FDA-mandated, report date and recall initiation date (absolute or relative like 30 days), or an advanced openFDA query.
3. Click Start. Export to CSV/Excel/JSON or connect it to your tools. For alerts, turn on Only new recalls and schedule it.

Why this FDA recall scraper

• Official source only: the U.S. FDA's public openFDA enforcement report APIs (food, drug, device). No HTML scraping that breaks when a website changes.
• All three recall databases in one run, each tagged with its category, with the same clean columns.
• Every filter that matters: keywords across product description, recall reason and lot codes; firm; Class I/II/III; status; state; country; voluntary/mandated; report and initiation date ranges; raw openFDA queries for anything else.
• Clean, flat output: recall number, event ID, classification + plain-English risk level, status, product type, product description, reason for recall, recalling firm, city/state/country, voluntary/mandated, notification method, distribution pattern, quantity, lot/code info, initiation / classification / report / termination dates, days since initiation and an FDA recall-event link. Drug and device rows add brand names, generic names, manufacturer, NDC codes, substances, routes, application numbers, device names, device class and product codes when openFDA has them.
• No 25,000-record ceiling: pages with openFDA's search_after cursor, so full exports (100k+ recalls) work.
• Alerts built in: Only new recalls remembers what you already received (per State key); already-seen recalls are free.
• Fast and light: up to 1,000 recalls per API page, thousands per minute, 256 MB memory.
• Privacy by design: recall-level data about products and companies only. The firm's street address and postal code are not included (city, state and country are), and firm names that look like an individual person are withheld.
• Cheapest per record: $0.50 per 1,000 recalls, $0.0003 per run start.

Input examples

Class I food recalls for Listeria reported in the last 90 days:

{ "categories": ["food"], "searchTerms": ["listeria"], "classifications": ["Class I"], "reportedFrom": "90 days" }

Weekly alert: any new drug or device recall from California firms:

{ "categories": ["drug", "device"], "states": ["CA"], "reportedFrom": "30 days", "onlyNew": true, "stateKey": "ca-weekly", "maxItems": 0 }

Recall history of a company:

{ "firms": ["Medtronic"], "categories": ["device"], "maxItems": 0 }

Ongoing oral drug recalls (advanced openFDA query):

{ "categories": ["drug"], "statuses": ["Ongoing"], "rawQuery": "openfda.route:\"ORAL\"" }

Output (one row per recall, shortened)

{
  "category": "food", "recallNumber": "H-0092-2027", "eventId": "99966",
  "classification": "Class I", "riskLevel": "high", "status": "Ongoing", "productType": "Food",
  "productDescription": "Deano's Pasta; Pear and Pecorino Triangoli Ravioli, 1lb. ...",
  "reasonForRecall": "Undeclared Lobster",
  "recallingFirm": "DEANO'S PASTA", "city": "Somerville", "state": "MA", "country": "United States",
  "voluntaryMandated": "Voluntary: Firm initiated", "initialFirmNotification": "Two or more of the following: Email, Fax, Letter, Press Release, Telephone, Visit",
  "distributionPattern": "MA, NH", "productQuantity": "78lbs", "codeInfo": "lot codes 090126126, 082526126,081826126, and 073126126",
  "recallInitiationDate": "2026-09-23", "centerClassificationDate": "2026-10-15", "reportDate": "2026-10-21",
  "terminationDate": null, "daysSinceInitiation": 35,
  "eventUrl": "https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/ires/index.cfm?Event=99966",
  "brandNames": [], "genericNames": [], "productNdc": [], "deviceClass": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-28T08:21:35Z"
}

A run summary (query, matching and saved recalls per category, already seen) is stored in the key-value store as OUTPUT.

Pricing

Pay per event, no subscription:

Event	Price
Recall saved	$0.0005 ($0.50 per 1,000)
Actor start	$0.0003

Example	Cost
100 recalls	about $0.05
1,000 recalls	about $0.50
Daily alert, ~30 new recalls a day for 30 days	about $0.46

Set Max cost per run in the run options and the Actor stops cleanly at that budget.

API, integrations and AI agents (MCP)

Run it from your own code with the Apify API:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/manageable_gully~fda-recalls-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"categories": ["food"], "searchTerms": ["salmonella"], "maxItems": 50}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient
run = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>").actor("manageable_gully/fda-recalls-scraper").call(run_input={"categories": ["drug"], "classifications": ["Class I"]})

• No-code: use the Apify app in n8n, Make or Zapier, or send results to Google Sheets, Slack or a webhook.
• AI agents (MCP): add https://mcp.apify.com?tools=manageable_gully/fda-recalls-scraper to Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? The FDA's openFDA enforcement report endpoints (/food/enforcement, /drug/enforcement, /device/enforcement). openFDA data is public domain (CC0). openFDA updates these weekly; recalls appear once the FDA classifies them.

Does it cover cosmetics and dietary supplements? Yes, the FDA files them in the food enforcement database (category food).

Do I need an openFDA API key? No. The optional key only raises openFDA's daily request limit for very large repeated exports.

Is this medical advice? No. As the FDA notes, openFDA data is unvalidated; check the official FDA recall notice before acting.

Need another field or source (e.g. FDA warning letters, adverse events)? Open an issue on the Actor page.

This is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. FDA; every row links back to the FDA recall event.

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