Farmaline Scraper

Scrape product data from Farmaline.be — Belgium's largest online pharmacy (now part of Redcare Pharmacy / Shop Apotheke). Over 70,000 products across OTC medicines, supplements, skincare, baby care, and more.

How it works under the hood

Farmaline runs on Algolia search, same as many European e-commerce sites. The actor queries their products_mktplc_prod_BE_nl (or _fr) index directly. No browser, no page rendering. Prices come back in cents and get converted to euros automatically.

By default, only in-stock products are returned — the actor applies a stock availability filter matching Farmaline's own frontend behavior.

Input

Field	Type	Description
searchQuery	String	Search terms, just like the search bar. dafalgan, vitamine D, La Roche-Posay
category	String	Primary category filter. Geneesmiddelen, Supplementen, Beauty & Lichaamsverzorging, Mama & Kind, Dieren
brand	String	Brand filter. Dafalgan, Bioderma, Eucerin, Metagenics, A.Vogel, Vichy
maxResults	Integer	Limit (default: 100). The full catalog is 70k+ but Algolia caps at ~50,000 per empty query
language	String	nl or fr — queries a different Algolia index
proxyConfiguration	Object	Optional, not usually needed

Combine filters freely. category: "Geneesmiddelen" + brand: "Dafalgan" returns just Dafalgan medicines.

Leaving all fields blank browses the full catalog.

Output

Pharmacy-specific fields set this apart from a generic product scraper. Every product includes pharma metadata when available:

{
    "name": "Dafalgan Forte 1g Filmomhulde Tabletten 30",
    "brand": "Dafalgan",
    "price": 6.29,
    "originalPrice": 9.50,
    "discount": "-34%",
    "pricePerUnit": "0.21/stuk",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "ean": "5412345100084",
    "sku": "BE01799121",
    "productId": "2270508",
    "inStock": true,
    "rating": 4.8,
    "reviewCount": 312,
    "imageUrl": "https://cgn-mig.farmaline.be/images/256x256/dafalgan-forte-1g-filmomhulde-tabletten-30.jpg",
    "description": "Dafalgan Forte 1g bevat paracetamol en wordt gebruikt bij koorts en pijnbestrijding.",
    "specs": {
        "Dosage Form": "Filmomhulde tabletten",
        "Package Size": "30 St",
        "Active Substances": "Paracetamol",
        "Prescription Required": "No"
    },
    "category": "Geneesmiddelen",
    "categories": ["Gezondheid", "Geneesmiddelen", "Pijnstillers"],
    "url": "https://www.farmaline.be/nl/artikel/BE01799121/dafalgan-forte-1g.htm",
    "language": "nl",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-16T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Fields worth noting

• pricePerUnit — Farmaline shows per-unit pricing (per tablet, per ml, etc.). Useful for comparing package sizes.
• specs.Dosage Form — Tabletten, Capsules, Siroop, Gel, Druppels, etc.
• specs.Active Substances — The active pharmaceutical ingredients.
• specs.Prescription Required — Yes or No. Farmaline sells both OTC and prescription items online.
• discount — Percentage off, formatted as -34%.
• originalPrice — The "adviesprijs" (recommended retail price) before Farmaline's discount.

Running costs

Pure Algolia queries, no browser overhead. About $0.05 per 1,000 products. Scraping the full 50,000-product window costs well under $5 in Apify credits.

Limits and caveats

• Algolia caps results at 1,000 pages per query (50 hits/page = 50,000 products max on an empty search). To reach all 70,000+ products, run multiple queries with different category or brand filters.
• Only in-stock products are returned. Farmaline removes out-of-stock items from their search index, so there's no way to get them without checking individual product URLs.
• The Algolia API key is extracted from Farmaline's frontend. If they rotate it, the actor will need an update.
• Product images use Farmaline's CDN URL format. The 256x256 size is returned by default.