🛒 What is Loblaws Grocery Scraper?

Loblaws Grocery Scraper lets you extract product and pricing data from Canadian grocery stores, helping you track prices, compare deals, and build grocery price databases with just a few clicks.

• Track grocery prices: Extract product names, prices, unit prices, and images to monitor price changes over time
• Compare across stores: Scrape Real Canadian Superstore and No Frills to find the best deals
• Build price databases: Automate data collection for grocery price comparison apps or research
• Analyze unit pricing: Get normalized $/100g or $/100ml pricing for apples-to-apples comparison
• Location-aware pricing: Specify a postal code or store ID for location-specific pricing
• Promotional tracking: Capture sale prices, multi-buy deals, and PC Optimum offers

The scraper uses the internal Loblaws API directly, bypassing the need for slow browser automation and providing fast, reliable data extraction.

What data does Loblaws Grocery Scraper extract?

🏷️ Product name	💲 Price & sale price
📦 Package size (e.g., 500g)	📊 Unit price (e.g., $0.66/100g)
🖼️ Product image URL	🔗 Product page URL
🆔 Product ID	📍 Store location ID
⚖️ Selling type (by weight/by unit)	📈 Comparable unit price (normalized)
🏷️ Multi-buy deals	💎 PC Optimum offers

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
banner	string	✅	Store banner: superstore or nofrills
categories	string[]	❌	Departments or subcategories to scrape (multi-select dropdown)
categoryUrls	string[]	❌	Custom category URLs for subcategories not in the dropdown
search_terms	string[]	❌	Search terms to query (e.g., "milk", "organic eggs")
postal_code	string	❌	Canadian postal code to auto-resolve the nearest store
locationId	string	❌	Explicit store location ID (takes priority over postal_code)

At least one of categories, categoryUrls, or search_terms must be provided.

Category selection

The categories dropdown supports 130+ options organized by department:

• 📁 Departments (e.g., fruits-vegetables, deli) — scrapes all subcategories within
• └ Subcategories (e.g., deli/deli-meat, bakery/bread) — scrapes a single subcategory
• all — scrapes the entire store across all departments

When you select a department, the actor dynamically discovers all its subcategories via the store's API and queues each one for scraping.

Example inputs

Single subcategory:

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "categories": ["bakery/bread"]
}

Entire department:

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "categories": ["deli", "bakery"]
}

Mix of departments and subcategories:

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "categories": ["meat", "dairy-eggs/cheese", "frozen-food/frozen-pizza"]
}

Full store scrape with location:

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "categories": ["all"],
  "postal_code": "V6M 2P8"
}

Search terms only:

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "search_terms": ["organic eggs", "oat milk"]
}

Custom URL (for L4 subcategories not in dropdown):

{
  "banner": "superstore",
  "categoryUrls": ["https://www.realcanadiansuperstore.ca/en/food/fruits-vegetables/fresh-vegetables/lettuce-leafy-vegetables/c/29612"]
}

⬆️ Output

Results are stored in a dataset accessible from the Output or Storage tab. Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

JSON output example

{
  "store": "Real Canadian Superstore",
  "name": "Bananas",
  "price": "0.69",
  "unit_price": "454 g, $0.15/100g",
  "image_url": "https://assets.shop.loblaws.ca/products/...",
  "product_url": "https://www.realcanadiansuperstore.ca/bananas/p/...",
  "product_id": "21023456",
  "location": "1517",
  "category": "fresh-fruits",
  "selling_type": "by_weight",
  "package_size": "454g",
  "parsed_package_size": {
    "size": 454,
    "unit": "g"
  },
  "normalized_package_size": {
    "size": 454,
    "unit": "g"
  },
  "parsed_unit_price": {
    "value": 0.15,
    "quantity": 100,
    "unit": "g",
    "unit_type": "weight"
  },
  "comparable_unit_price": 0.15,
  "was_price": 0.89,
  "is_on_sale": true,
  "multi_buy_deal": "2 for $1.00",
  "pc_optimum_offer": "1000 points"
}

Output fields

Field	Description
store	Store name (Real Canadian Superstore or No Frills)
name	Product display name
price	Current price (without $ symbol)
unit_price	Raw unit price string from store (e.g., "454 g, $0.15/100g")
product_url	Direct link to product page
selling_type	by_weight or by_unit — how the product is priced
package_size	Package size as string (e.g., "500g", "2l")
parsed_unit_price	Structured unit price with value, quantity, and unit
comparable_unit_price	Normalized price per 100g or 100ml for comparison
was_price	Previous price before sale (null if not on sale)
is_on_sale	Whether the product currently has a deal
multi_buy_deal	Multi-buy promotion text (e.g., "2 for $5.00")
pc_optimum_offer	PC Optimum loyalty points offer, if any

🏪 Supported stores

Banner	Store Name	API Handler
superstore	Real Canadian Superstore	Loblaws API
nofrills	No Frills	Loblaws API

Both stores use the same underlying Loblaws API (PC Express BFF), so the scraper works identically for both.

🔧 Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
BULLSEYE_API_KEY	❌	API key for postal code → store ID resolution
BULLSEYE_CLIENT_ID	❌	Client ID for postal code → store ID resolution

These are only needed if you use the postal_code input field. If you always specify locationId directly, they are not required.

❓ FAQ

How does it work?

It calls the internal Loblaws BFF API directly (the same API their website uses), which is much faster and more reliable than browser-based scraping. The scraper handles pagination automatically, requesting each page until all products are collected.

Can I scrape multiple categories at once?

Yes! Select multiple departments or subcategories in the categories dropdown, or use "all" to scrape the entire store. You can also combine categories with search terms in a single run.

How does category discovery work?

When you select a department (e.g., "Deli"), the actor calls the Loblaws API with the L2 department ID. The API returns a navigation tree containing all L3 subcategories (Deli Meat, Deli Cheese, etc.). Each subcategory is then scraped individually to collect all products.

How do I find the location ID for my store?

Use the postal_code field instead — the actor will automatically resolve the nearest store. Alternatively, common Vancouver store IDs:

Real Canadian Superstore: 1517 (Marine Dr), 1520 (Grandview Hwy) No Frills: 3641 (Denman), 3410 (Fraser), 3671 (Alma), 9532 (Hastings E)

Can I integrate this with other tools?

Yes! Use Apify integrations to connect with Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, and more. You can also use webhooks or the Apify API to trigger actions when scraping completes.

📝 Your feedback

We're always working on improving the performance of our Actors. If you've got any technical feedback for Loblaws Grocery Scraper or found a bug, please create an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.