Food and drink
Food products, recipes and breweries
Food and drink APIs look up food products by barcode with their ingredients and nutrition, find recipes by name or ingredient, and list breweries. Use them for shopping lists, diet trackers and recipe apps.
Open Brewery DB
Open Brewery DB is an open database of breweries, cideries and brewpubs, mostly in the United States but also in other countries. Search breweries by name, city, state, postal code, type or distance to a point, and get their ...
Open Food Facts API
Open Food Facts is a collaborative, open database of food products from around the world. Look up a product by its barcode and get its name, brand, ingredients, allergens, additives, nutrition facts and scores such as ...
TheMealDB
TheMealDB is an open, crowd-sourced database of recipes from around the world. Search meals by name or first letter, filter by main ingredient, category or area, get a random meal, and get full recipes with ingredients, measures, ...
Compare the food, recipe and drink APIs
| Service | API key | Formats | Free use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Brewery DB | Not needed | JSON | Free and open source, no key needed. |
| Open Food Facts API | Not needed | JSON | Free, open data, no key needed; send a User-Agent that identifies your app. |
| TheMealDB | Not needed | JSON | The test key '1' is free for development and education; public apps are asked to become a supporter for a small fee. |
Questions
Which free food, recipe and drink APIs work without an API key?
Open Brewery DB, Open Food Facts API and TheMealDB work without a key, according to their documentation. Most keyless services ask you to keep the number of requests reasonable, and some ask for a User-Agent that names your app.
Are these food, recipe and drink APIs really free?
The services here can be used without paying, at least on a free plan or free tier, often with limits such as a number of requests per day or non-commercial use only. The table above quotes what each service says about its free use; check the provider's own terms before you rely on it.
How up to date is this list?
The address of every service is checked about once a week, and services that stop working or stop being free are removed. This list last changed on November 8th, 2026.