Civic Data

About Civic Data

Making US government public records fast, searchable, and free to access.

What this site does

Civic Data aggregates and presents public data from US federal government sources in a clean, searchable format. The current focus is recall data — food, drug, and medical device enforcement actions published by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2004, and meat, poultry, and egg product recalls published by the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

Every FDA recall record on this site comes directly from the OpenFDA API, a free public API maintained by the FDA. USDA recall records come from FSIS.gov. We do not create or modify recall data — we display official government records in a more accessible format.

Why we built it

FDA.gov publishes recall information but the search experience is limited. Finding recalls for a specific brand, product type, or contaminant — or comparing recall history across companies — requires significant manual effort. Civic Data makes that browseable and searchable in seconds.

Our goal is to give consumers, journalists, researchers, and food safety professionals a faster path to information that is already public but hard to navigate.

Data coverage

  • FDA Food recalls — enforcements from the Human Foods Program, including food, beverages, and dietary supplements
  • FDA Drug recalls — prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical enforcement actions
  • FDA Device recalls — medical device and equipment enforcement actions
  • USDA Recalls — meat, poultry, and egg product recalls and public health alerts from FSIS

FDA data is refreshed from OpenFDA on a weekly schedule, with coverage going back to approximately 2004 for food and drug records (historical coverage varies by category). USDA data is refreshed weekly from FSIS.

What this site is not

Civic Data is not affiliated with the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, or any government agency. Recall records on this site are sourced from OpenFDA and FSIS and may not reflect the most current status of an active recall. Always verify recall information against official FDA sources or official USDA FSIS sources before making health or safety decisions.

Contact us

Spotted an error, have a suggestion, or want to request a new data source? We'd love to hear from you at admin@thecivicdata.com.

More information