Open Food Facts API

Beginner's Pick Food & Drink / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS

Free to Use Varies (check documentation)

85 A

Measured Score TESTED 2026-07-23

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Overview

Open Food Facts is a free, community-driven database of food products from around the world, containing nutritional facts, ingredients, allergens, and Eco-scores. No API key is required — you can look up any product by its barcode or search by name or nutrient. It is an excellent API for building nutrition trackers, diet apps, or sustainability dashboards.

Beginner Tip

Look up a product using its barcode number (the digits under the barcode on the package) via GET /api/v2/product/{barcode}.json — this is the most reliable way to get accurate data for a specific item.

Available Data

recipe name and ingredients

nutritional values

calorie count

serving size

preparation time

Use case: Integrate food products database data into web and mobile applications

Example Response

JSON Response

{
  "recipe": "Chicken Stir Fry",
  "calories": 380,
  "protein_g": 32,
  "carbs_g": 28,
  "fat_g": 14,
  "ingredients": [
    "chicken breast",
    "bell pepper",
    "soy sauce",
    "garlic"
  ],
  "prep_time_minutes": 20
}

Field Reference

status 1 if the product was found, 0 if not found in the database.

product.product_name Consumer-facing product name as labeled on the packaging.

product.brands Comma-separated brand names associated with the product.

product.nutriments Nutritional values per 100 g (e.g., energy-kcal_100g, fat_100g, sugars_100g, proteins_100g).

product.ingredients_text Full ingredient list as printed on the packaging.

product.nutriscore_grade Nutri-Score letter grade (a through e) indicating overall nutritional quality.

Implementation Example

Request

const url = "https://world.openfoodfacts.org/data";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

status 0 in response (product not found) The barcode does not exist in the Open Food Facts database yet.

✓ Check the status field before accessing product data: if data.status === 0, show a "not found" message. You can also contribute the product at world.openfoodfacts.org.

Missing or empty nutriments fields Open Food Facts is community-sourced so data completeness varies widely by product.

✓ Always treat nutritional fields as optional and display "N/A" when they are absent.

429 Too Many Requests Making rapid repeated requests triggers rate limiting.

✓ Add a short delay between requests (e.g., 1 second) and cache product data locally by barcode to avoid redundant lookups.