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Are there sources of nutritional data about UK supermarket products, by barcode?

The indexing by barcode does not need to be direct: if I have to implement a join with some other data to achieve that, that's fine.

Here is an example of the sort of information I am looking for (from http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254381873):

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| Typical Values   | 100g contains    | 4 squares (17g) contain |
=================================================================
| Energy           | 2135kJ (510kcal) | 365kJ (90kcal)          |
| Protein          | 6.2g             | 1.1g                    |
| Carbohydrate     | 63.0g            | 10.7g                   |
| Sugars           | 62.0g            | 10.5g                   |
| Fat              | 25.3g            | 4.3g                    |
| Saturates        | 16.0g            | 2.7g                    |
| Mono Unsaturates | 8.1g             | 1.4g                    |
| Polyunsaturates  | 1.1g             | 0.2g                    |
| Fibre            | 2.6g             | 0.4g                    |
| Sodium*          | 0.1g             | trace                   |
| *Salt Equivalent | 0.2g             | trace                   |
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, it would be possible to scrape supermarket websites, but I prefer not to do that.

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  • +1 Interesting question. I am aware of apps which provide nutritional data via scanning a product's barcode (this one is US-based). Unfortunately it seems these kinds of apps tend to use propietary, closed databases. In a quick search I couldn't find anything approaching an open database of nutritional data relating to UK-based supermarkets.
    – Snubian
    Jul 22, 2013 at 3:42
  • Did you actually find something in the end? I'm looking for pretty similar data. You know, that searching takes endless time, so I would be glad about a short update. Thanks
    – Simon C.
    Feb 21, 2018 at 8:49

4 Answers 4

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We're building an open crowdsourced database for uk food products. We have calories, ingredients, photos. You can use it and contribute to it as well (and let your user contribute) according to the OdBL licence :-) https://uk.openfoodfacts.org and https://world.openfoodfacts.org

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Have you tried http://www.wolframalpha.com for example http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bacardi. They have an API which will bring back this kind of data. I am not sure it works off a barcode, but that is worth a try.

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Old question but means I found my way here thought I’d share what I’ve found.

Tesco have a grocery API

https://www.tescolabs.com/category/api/

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This company seems to be specifically focused on what you are looking for, give it a go: http://supermarketapi.com/Default.aspx Note: this seems to be a paid service, there is a trial and after that you will have to pay for the service.

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