{
  "name": "Most Common Food Additives in US Products (PlainFoodSafe)",
  "description": "Additives ranked by the number of distinct US packaged-food products whose parsed ingredient list contains them, computed from Open Food Facts product records.",
  "landingPage": "https://plainfoodsafe.com/data/most-common-food-additives",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "licenseNote": "PlainFoodSafe compilation: CC BY 4.0, reuse with attribution. Underlying Open Food Facts product records remain licensed ODbL 1.0.",
  "source": {
    "name": "Open Food Facts",
    "url": "https://world.openfoodfacts.org/data",
    "license": "ODbL 1.0"
  },
  "dataVintage": "2026-08-02",
  "denominator": {
    "catalogued_products": 894137
  },
  "exclusions": [
    "salt",
    "sugar",
    "water"
  ],
  "exclusionNote": "Excluded as primary ingredients rather than additives.",
  "caveats": [
    "Frequency count, not a risk ranking: order carries no safety judgement.",
    "Open Food Facts is contributor-maintained, so coverage varies and ingredient lists may be incomplete.",
    "Synonyms may normalize unevenly, so one substance can split across rows.",
    "Counts are products carrying the additive, not quantities consumed."
  ],
  "citation": "PlainFoodSafe, \"Most Common Food Additives in US Products\", https://plainfoodsafe.com/data/most-common-food-additives",
  "downloads": {
    "csv": "https://plainfoodsafe.com/rankings/most-common-food-additives-us-products.csv",
    "table": "https://plainfoodsafe.com/rankings/most-common-food-additives-us-products"
  },
  "rowCount": 20,
  "rows": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "name": "Citric Acid",
      "product_count": 91634,
      "share_pct": 10.2
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "name": "Natural Flavor",
      "product_count": 61894,
      "share_pct": 6.9
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "name": "Folic Acid",
      "product_count": 58687,
      "share_pct": 6.6
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "name": "Riboflavin",
      "product_count": 58035,
      "share_pct": 6.5
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "name": "Niacin",
      "product_count": 53405,
      "share_pct": 6
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "name": "Wheat Flour",
      "product_count": 52687,
      "share_pct": 5.9
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "name": "Soy Lecithin",
      "product_count": 52294,
      "share_pct": 5.8
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "name": "Corn Syrup",
      "product_count": 46998,
      "share_pct": 5.3
    },
    {
      "rank": 9,
      "name": "Sea salt",
      "product_count": 46613,
      "share_pct": 5.2
    },
    {
      "rank": 10,
      "name": "Spices",
      "product_count": 45370,
      "share_pct": 5.1
    },
    {
      "rank": 11,
      "name": "Natural Flavors",
      "product_count": 43845,
      "share_pct": 4.9
    },
    {
      "rank": 12,
      "name": "Corn Starch",
      "product_count": 42123,
      "share_pct": 4.7
    },
    {
      "rank": 13,
      "name": "Soybean Oil",
      "product_count": 41890,
      "share_pct": 4.7
    },
    {
      "rank": 14,
      "name": "Dextrose",
      "product_count": 41251,
      "share_pct": 4.6
    },
    {
      "rank": 15,
      "name": "Garlic",
      "product_count": 40502,
      "share_pct": 4.5
    },
    {
      "rank": 16,
      "name": "Enzymes",
      "product_count": 38235,
      "share_pct": 4.3
    },
    {
      "rank": 17,
      "name": "Milk",
      "product_count": 37147,
      "share_pct": 4.2
    },
    {
      "rank": 18,
      "name": "Xanthan Gum",
      "product_count": 36931,
      "share_pct": 4.1
    },
    {
      "rank": 19,
      "name": "Reduced Iron",
      "product_count": 36637,
      "share_pct": 4.1
    },
    {
      "rank": 20,
      "name": "Maltodextrin",
      "product_count": 33252,
      "share_pct": 3.7
    }
  ]
}