MealCP Supermarket Price API Overview
MealCP is a real-time grocery price API and inventory API for European supermarkets. It serves live food and grocery catalog data through a clear REST API and a ready-to-use Model Context Protocol (MCP) server.
MealCP indexes product catalogs, stock levels, and prices across major European supermarket chains. Instead of querying separate sites or building custom links for each retailer, developers and AI agents can use one supermarket API.
It can also serve as a food price API for trend analysis and pricing research.
Prices refresh from nightly retailer runs, so each record carries a
latest_observed_at timestamp and every price has an audit trail. The
catalog is normalized on ingest: pack sizes, unit prices per liter or
kilogram, currencies, categories, and tags all follow one schema across
retailers and countries.
Core Capabilities
Section titled “Core Capabilities”- Cross-Retailer Product Search: Search across several chains in one country with one query, with unit-normalized prices so you can compare price per liter or kilogram.
- Historical Price Observations: Track price changes over time with daily snapshots, minimum, maximum, and average stats, plus raw logs.
- Taxonomy & Tags: A three-level category tree with clear allergen, diet, and lifestyle tags.
- Native MCP Support: Connect AI tools like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and
opencode to live grocery prices through
mealcp-mcp.
What’s in a product record?
Section titled “What’s in a product record?”A search hit or product lookup returns the fields an app or agent needs, without a second call:
- Identity: product name in the retailer’s language, brand, opaque
id, and the retailer’s page and image URLs. - Pack and price: quantity value and unit, the latest shelf price in the local currency, and the unit price per liter or kilogram that makes pack sizes comparable.
- Category: the full category path from L1 root to leaf, plus tag slugs for allergens, diets, and certifications.
- Placement: which retailer and chain sell it, and in which country and cities.
- Freshness:
latest_observed_at, plus the id you need to fetch the full price history for that product.
How the API is organized
Section titled “How the API is organized”| Group | Endpoints | Key needed | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search & lookup | /v1/search, /v1/products/{id} |
yes | Find products; fetch one by id |
| Catalogue | /v1/products |
yes | Gap-free enumeration of the full catalogue |
| Prices | /v1/prices/{id}, /v1/prices/{id}/observations |
yes | Trend stats and raw observation logs |
| Taxonomy | /v1/categories, /v1/tags |
no | Category tree and tag vocabulary |
| Account | /v1/me |
yes | Identity, credit cap, live balance |
| Coverage | /v1/coverage |
no | Countries, retailers, catalog sizes |
All endpoints are read-only GET requests that return JSON. Shared error
envelopes and pagination follow the same
REST API rules.
Use cases
Section titled “Use cases”- AI Shopping & Recipe Assistants: Let LLMs and agents check live ingredient prices and store availability.
- Price Comparison & Deal Trackers: Build a grocery price comparison API or app that compares the same product or a substitute across supermarkets.
- Food Inflation & Market Research: Analyze price trends and past price swings across European food retail markets.
- Inventory & Catalogue Integration: Power meal planning, nutrition, and pantry apps with accurate product data.
Quick links
Section titled “Quick links”- New here? The Quickstart gets you from zero to a live API call in two minutes - the beta is closed to new keys, so join our Discord to catch the launch date.
- Using Claude Desktop or Cursor? See the MCP integration.
- Building an app? Read the REST API reference.
- Wondering what a request costs? See credits and limits.
- Need help or have feedback? Join our Discord community or visit our GitHub.
What problem does MealCP solve for developers and AI agents?
MealCP gives developers and AI agents one grocery price API for product search, inventory, and catalog data across major European supermarket chains. Instead of building and maintaining separate links for each retailer, they can use one REST API or MCP server to search products, compare prices, and check availability.
How current is the pricing data in MealCP?
Prices refresh from nightly retailer runs. Each record includes a
latest_observed_at timestamp, and every price has an audit trail, so apps
can see the latest observed price and how it has changed over time.
Why are unit-normalized prices important?
Unit-normalized prices, such as price per liter or price per kilogram, make it easier to compare products with different pack sizes fairly. This helps price comparison apps, deal trackers, recipe assistants, and other tools that need to find the best value across retailers.
What information is included in a product record?
A product record includes identity data such as name, brand, id, product
page URL, and image URL; pack and price data such as quantity, shelf price,
currency, and unit price; category data such as the category path and tags;
placement data such as retailer, chain, country, and cities; and freshness
data including latest_observed_at and the id needed to fetch full price
history.
What kinds of applications can be built with MealCP?
MealCP can support AI shopping and recipe assistants, grocery price comparison tools, deal trackers, food price API use cases, market research dashboards, inventory integrations, meal planning tools, nutrition apps, and pantry management systems that need accurate grocery metadata and price history.