Product Recall Scraper & Safety Alert Monitor

At a glance: what it does is search public product recall and safety alert sources; input examples include searchQuery, sources, and maxResultsPerSource; output examples are recall dataset rows, run summaries, RSS, and JSON Feed records; use cases include compliance checks and marketplace monitoring; limitations, troubleshooting, and pricing/cost notes are covered below.

Product Recall Scraper & Safety Alert Monitor helps compliance teams, marketplace operators, sellers, importers, and researchers search public product recalls, consumer product safety alerts, and recall notices across official sources in several countries.

Use it as a product recall scraper, recall monitoring tool, product safety monitor, or recall data API for checks such as charger, lithium battery, electric scooter, baby toy, cosmetics, power bank, or a brand name. Results are saved as structured dataset items that can be reviewed in Apify or exported to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, and other formats.

Main use cases

• Search multiple public recall sources with one keyword
• Monitor product safety alerts for a product line, brand, category, or hazard
• Track newly found or changed recall notices across repeat runs
• Export official-source recall records for compliance review, marketplace checks, research, or reporting
• Build a lightweight recall watchlist without manually checking each source website

Supported public sources

• United States: US CPSC product recalls
• United Kingdom: UK OPSS product safety alerts and recalls
• Canada: consumer product recalls
• Australia: consumer product recalls
• European Union: Safety Gate weekly reports
• New Zealand: product recalls

Coverage depends on the public source websites and feeds above. This Actor is not a complete global recall database.

What data you get

Each dataset item is one recall or safety alert record from an official public source. Fields can include:

• title
• source
• sourceId
• countryOrRegion
• alertType
• riskLevel
• productCategory
• brand
• productName
• model
• barcodeOrIdentifier
• hazard
• correctiveAction
• publishedAt
• recallDate
• sourceUrl
• imageUrls
• searchQuery
• matchedKeyword
• riskScore
• isNew
• isChanged
• previousHash
• contentHash
• scrapedAt

Input configuration

• searchQuery is required. Enter a product name, brand, category, hazard, model, or keyword.
• sources selects the countries or regions to search. Duplicate source IDs are accepted and normalized.
• maxResultsPerSource limits how many of the latest matching records are collected from each selected source.

The public input form is intentionally short. Existing API clients can still send these optional advanced fields when needed: onlyNew, includeImages, outputFeeds, maxConcurrency, stateStoreName, and debug.

Example input

{
  "searchQuery": "lithium battery",
  "sources": ["US_CPSC", "UK_OPSS", "CA_RECALLS", "EU_SAFETY_GATE"],
  "maxResultsPerSource": 5
}

Example output

{
  "title": "Lithium Coin Batteries Recalled Due to Battery Ingestion",
  "source": "US_CPSC",
  "sourceId": "26510",
  "countryOrRegion": "United States",
  "alertType": "Product recall",
  "riskLevel": null,
  "productCategory": null,
  "brand": null,
  "productName": "VL2020 Lithium Coin Batteries",
  "model": null,
  "barcodeOrIdentifier": null,
  "hazard": "The recalled coin batteries are not in child-resistant packaging...",
  "correctiveAction": "Consumers should stop using the coin batteries immediately...",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "recallDate": "2026-05-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/...",
  "imageUrls": [],
  "searchQuery": "lithium battery",
  "matchedKeyword": "battery",
  "riskScore": 100,
  "isNew": true,
  "isChanged": false,
  "previousHash": null,
  "contentHash": "facee95f5a81034e86e3b9952821364e7a5fb3477127ec4ee922ed8e64a8e334",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-11T11:45:00.000Z"
}

How to run on Apify

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Enter a keyword in Product or keyword.
3. Choose the countries or regions to search.
4. Set Results per source to a small number for the latest matches, or a larger number for broader monitoring.
5. Run the Actor and open the dataset when the run finishes.

For scheduled monitoring, use the same keyword and selected sources across runs. API users who manage several independent watchlists can pass a custom stateStoreName, and can pass onlyNew: true when they want only newly discovered records.

Exporting results

Open the run dataset and choose the export format you need. Apify supports downloads such as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, and RSS-compatible exports. API users can also pass outputFeeds: true to save RSS_XML and JSON_FEED files in the run key-value store.

Python API example

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
actor_client = client.actor("thescrapelab/product-recall-safety-alert-monitor")

run_input = {
    "searchQuery": "lithium battery",
    "sources": ["US_CPSC", "UK_OPSS", "CA_RECALLS"],
    "maxResultsPerSource": 5,
}

run = actor_client.call(run_input=run_input)
dataset_client = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"])

for item in dataset_client.iterate_items():
    print(item["title"], item["source"], item["sourceUrl"])

Pricing and usage expectations

The Actor is optimized for low-memory HTTP scraping and uses dynamic memory. Small keyword checks normally run at 128 MB. Broader multi-source searches normally run at 256 MB.

Recommended monetization is pay per dataset result, with platform usage included in the event price. Benchmarks across source, option, concurrency, and result-limit combinations support a default price of about $0.00035 per result, or $0.35 per 1,000 recall records. This keeps pricing simple: users pay for useful recall records rather than raw runtime. Empty searches should remain inexpensive because they produce no paid result events, although normal Apify platform usage may still apply depending on the configured billing model.

Limits and caveats

• Results depend on public source availability, search behavior, and published metadata.
• Some sources expose limited historical windows or rank broad queries differently.
• Some records do not include every field because official pages vary by country and agency.
• EU Safety Gate uses public weekly report endpoints, so sparse historical queries may not return every older match.
• New Zealand broad searches may be limited by source-side ranking and page windows.
• This Actor does not provide legal, compliance, medical, or product-safety advice. Always verify important decisions against the official source URL.

Troubleshooting

• No results: try a broader keyword such as battery, charger, toy, or a brand name, and check more than one source.
• Too many results: lower maxResultsPerSource to keep only the latest matches, or search for a more specific product, model, or brand.
• Repeat runs show old records: use the same keyword and source selection. API users can pass onlyNew: true for incremental monitoring.
• A source fails: rerun later and check the run summary. Public source websites can change or temporarily reject requests.
• Runs take longer for EU or New Zealand: those sources may need to scan more public pages before finding keyword matches.
• Image URLs are missing: API users can pass includeImages: true; some sources do not publish product images.

FAQ

Can this monitor CPSC product recalls?

Yes. Select US_CPSC to search public US Consumer Product Safety Commission recall records.

Can this search product recalls outside the United States?

Yes. It supports selected public sources in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the European Union, and New Zealand.

Can I use it as a recall monitoring API?

Yes. Run it from the Apify API, read the default dataset, and schedule repeated runs with the same keyword and source selection.

Does it return only new recalls?

Yes, through the API. Set onlyNew to true after an initial run. The Actor compares records against stored monitoring state for the same search and source.

Does it scrape official public sources?

Yes. Dataset items include sourceUrl so you can review the official public recall or alert page.

Is it a complete global recall database?

No. It searches the supported public sources listed above and depends on their coverage, availability, and published fields.