Acesulfame Potassium
PlainFoodSafe flags Acesulfame Potassium as a controversial additive. CSPI Chemical Cuisine rates it “Avoid.” It appears in 7,386 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Acesulfame Potassium appears in 7,386 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Avoid.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “Approved.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 7,386
- catalogued products
- #156
- usage rank of 247,206
- 932
- named brands represented
- 71%
- average depth down ingredient lists
Catalog prevalence comes from Open Food Facts ingredient lists. FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine labels are shown only when the source record contains them.
High-volume listing for Acesulfame Potassium - usage rank #156
- Usage rank
- #156
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 7,390 products, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 71%
- Averaged label depth puts Acesulfame Potassium in the lower half of the list (71% of list length, mean slot 11.7). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.
How common is Acesulfame Potassium vs other flagged additives?
Number of indexed products containing each of the most common flagged additives - Acesulfame Potassium highlighted.
Reading this ingredient record
Audit the co-occurring flags first
100% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Acesulfame Potassium as the trigger. Open records such as 100 Calorie Quick Cooking Oatmeal Cinnamon Roll; 100 calories protein nutrition shake; 100% Gold Standard Whey and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 54.4/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 71% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
100% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 7363 of 7363 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.
Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.
What else is usually in the same product as Acesulfame Potassium
Across the 7,386 products on this site that list Acesulfame Potassium, these flagged additives appear alongside it most often. The comparison column is how often each one appears across every product with a parsed ingredient list, so the two figures are measured over the same set. Sucralose shows up about 23.6x more often with Acesulfame Potassium than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Acesulfame Potassium products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sucralose | 4,708 | 63.7% | 2.7% |
| Aspartame | 2,442 | 33.1% | 0.9% |
| Red 40 | 1,529 | 20.7% | 5.4% |
| Blue 1 | 1,141 | 15.4% | 4.2% |
| Caramel Coloring | 911 | 12.3% | 5.7% |
Co-occurrence describes what manufacturers formulate together. It is not a claim that these additives interact, and it carries no regulatory meaning. Counted over products with parsed ingredient lists; Open Food Facts, 2026-09-01.
Function
NON-NUTRITIVE SWEETENER
Safety Concerns
Controversial additive
How do the sampled products compare?
Each point is one of the 16 sampled products listed below: its overall safety score against how many separately flagged ingredients its label carries. Bubble size is the number of ingredient rows the label actually resolved to.
Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Acesulfame Potassium
Products Containing Acesulfame Potassium
16 busy labels from the 7,386 indexed products that list Acesulfame Potassium:
Acesulfame Potassium vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Acesulfame Potassium: 7,386 products, mean screening score 54.4/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Soybeans; Organic Coconut; Sodium Erythorbate. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
Similar product count
Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).
Similar mean product score
Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.
Using the Acesulfame Potassium evidence
Start from Acesulfame Potassium's 7,386 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Review the sampled product records that list Acesulfame Potassium to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Browse linked labels
- Place Acesulfame Potassium next to “Organic Coconut” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. Open methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should I read safety signals when Acesulfame Potassium sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
100% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Acesulfame Potassium is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Acesulfame Potassium scores 1/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Avoid" with FDA SAFFA status "Approved". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Acesulfame Potassium? ▼
Acesulfame Potassium ranks in the top decile by product count (#156 of 247,206), appearing in 7,386 indexed products led by Beverages. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Acesulfame Potassium serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Acesulfame Potassium is recorded as a non-nutritive sweetener in source technical-effect fields. In high co-flag products, that function coexists with other caution-marked components — inspect the full list rather than isolating this role.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Acesulfame Potassium). Safety ratings: CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence: Open Food Facts via PlainFoodSafe (September 2026). Figures are computed from those sources, no editor-typed counts. Methodology · State regulations.