# Hofer Austria Scraper — Groceries, Prices & Categories (`studio-amba/hofer-at-scraper`) Actor

Scrape the Hofer Austria (Aldi Süd) product catalogue by keyword: product names, brands, prices in EUR, unit prices, package sizes, categories and images. No login or cookies, no Bright Data spend.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/studio-amba/hofer-at-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Studio Amba](https://apify.com/studio-amba) (community)
- **Categories:** E-commerce
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.20 / 1,000 result scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — 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

## Hofer Austria Scraper

Scrape the Hofer Austria (hofer.at) product catalogue by keyword and get clean, structured product data: names, brands, prices, unit prices, package sizes, categories and images.

Hofer is Aldi Süd's Austrian discount grocery chain, one of the country's largest supermarket groups. This actor reads the product data already embedded in Hofer's own product pages, so you get fast, reliable grocery data without a login, cookies or a browser.

### Why use this actor?

If you track grocery prices, build a price-comparison tool, monitor promotions, or feed a market-research dataset, you need structured product data you can rely on. This actor turns any Hofer keyword search into a table of products with prices in EUR, unit prices, package sizes, categories and images.

Typical users:

- Price-intelligence and price-comparison platforms tracking Austrian discount retail.
- Brands and suppliers monitoring how their products are listed and priced at Hofer.
- Market researchers and analysts building grocery datasets across Austria.
- Developers who need a clean product feed instead of scraping HTML themselves.

### How to scrape Hofer data

1. Open the actor in the Apify Console.
2. Enter a **search query** in German — for example `milch`, `kaese`, `brot` or `joghurt`.
3. Set **maxResults** to how many products you want.
4. Leave the proxy on the default Apify setting and click **Start**.
5. When the run finishes, download the results as JSON, CSV, Excel or feed them to an API.

The actor requests Hofer's own product search pages, paginates through every result page for your query, de-duplicates by internal SKU, and writes one clean record per product.

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Description |
|-------|------|----------|--------------|
| `searchQuery` | String | No | Keyword to search in German (default: `milch`) |
| `maxResults` | Integer | No | Maximum products to return (default: 100) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Object | No | Apify proxy settings (default Apify proxy works) |

#### Example input

```json
{
    "searchQuery": "milch",
    "maxResults": 20,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}
```

### Output

Each result contains:

| Field | Type | Example |
|-------|------|---------|
| `productName` | String | `"Schokomilch"` |
| `brand` | String | `"MILSANI"` |
| `price` | Number | `0.39` |
| `currency` | String | `"EUR"` |
| `pricePerUnit` | String | `"€ 1,19/100 g"` |
| `originalPrice` | Number | `0.99` |
| `discount` | String | Savings text when the product is on promotion |
| `sellingSize` | String | `"0,5 kg"` |
| `category` | String | `"Brot und Backwaren"` |
| `sku` | String | `"000000000000100778"` |
| `inStock` | Boolean/null | Always `null` — see note below |
| `discontinued` | Boolean | `false` |
| `imageUrl` | String | Primary product image URL |
| `url` | String | Full product page URL |
| `scrapedAt` | String | ISO 8601 timestamp |

`originalPrice` and `discount` appear only on promoted products. `pricePerUnit` and `sellingSize` are present for weighed/measured goods but absent for fresh bakery-counter items sold per piece (Hofer's own catalogue doesn't carry a per-unit price for those).

### Example output

```json
{
    "productName": "Toastbrot",
    "brand": "HAPPY HARVEST",
    "price": 0.94,
    "currency": "EUR",
    "pricePerUnit": "€ 1,88/1 kg",
    "originalPrice": 0.99,
    "sellingSize": "0,5 kg",
    "category": "Brot und Backwaren",
    "sku": "000000000000100778",
    "discontinued": false,
    "imageUrl": "https://dm.emea.cms.aldi.cx/is/image/aldiprodeu/product/jpg/scaleWidth/800/0cac03ec-b4aa-444e-9692-c8c1b0322dcc/",
    "url": "https://www.hofer.at/produkt/happy-harvest-toastbrot-000000000000100778",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-06T19:42:58.775Z",
    "inStock": null
}
```

### Notes and limitations

- Prices are Hofer's own published online prices in EUR.
- **This is a browse/price-transparency catalogue, not a live shopping cart.** Hofer's own catalogue marks every item `notForSale` on this data source — you can browse names, prices and categories, but this actor cannot place an order. `inStock` is always returned as `null` rather than guessed, because the source never reports live stock levels.
- **No EAN/GTIN barcodes.** Hofer's product data exposes only an internal SKU, never a real barcode. Do not treat `sku` as a GTIN.
- `pricePerUnit` and `sellingSize` are missing for some fresh bakery-counter products (rolls, pretzels) that Hofer sells per piece rather than by weight — this is a gap in the source data, not the scraper.
- Results are de-duplicated by Hofer's internal SKU.

### Cost

Pricing is pay per result. A typical keyword search of 20–1000 products completes in well under a minute, so most runs cost only a few cents in Apify platform usage plus the per-result fee.

Usage cost only settles once the run reports SUCCEEDED — reading the dataset mid-run will undercount what the run will end up costing.

### Related Scrapers

Build a complete view of European grocery retail with these sibling scrapers from Studio AMBA:

- **[INTERSPAR Austria Scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/interspar-at-scraper)** — Austrian hypermarket products and prices (interspar.at).
- **[BILLA Austria Scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/billa-at-scraper)** — Austrian supermarket products and prices (billa.at).
- **[Aldi Scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/aldi-scraper)** — Aldi Nord grocery products.
- **[Aldi UK Scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/aldi-uk-scraper)** — Aldi Süd international commerce stack, UK market.
- **[Dia ES Scraper](https://apify.com/studio-amba/dia-es-scraper)** — Spanish supermarket products and prices (dia.es).

# Actor input Schema

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Keyword to search the Hofer Austria catalogue in German (e.g. 'milch', 'brot', 'kaese').

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of products to return.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify proxy settings. The default Apify proxy works fine — the site is not IP/geo-blocked, only User-Agent/TLS-fingerprint sensitive (handled internally by the actor).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "searchQuery": "milch",
  "maxResults": 20,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "searchQuery": "milch",
    "maxResults": 20,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("studio-amba/hofer-at-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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "searchQuery": "milch",
    "maxResults": 20,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("studio-amba/hofer-at-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "searchQuery": "milch",
  "maxResults": 20,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call studio-amba/hofer-at-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,studio-amba/hofer-at-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/RfnEXlScudFCGVmXd/builds/LG6SltceYFu8hw6qY/openapi.json