Acetic Acid
Acetic Acid carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 2,892 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Acetic Acid appears in 2,892 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “GRAS.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 2,892
- catalogued products
- #317
- usage rank of 248,027
- 901
- named brands represented
- 66%
- 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.
5/5 from FDA SAFFA + CSPI Chemical Cuisine
Where Acetic Acid sits among catalogued ingredients
- Usage rank
- #317
- of 248,027 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 66%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 2,893 products listing it (mean slot 19.1). Acetic Acid usually falls in the lower half of the list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.
Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 248,027 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 903 of 2892 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 0000 LIME PICKLE Tangy and fiery, with zesty lime; 12 country sausage & biscuits with cheese; 12 Soft Kaiser Rolls Enriced to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Acetic Acid itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Condiments supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
All 2835 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 0–100 score spread more informative than the average alone: investigate the low end, identify the actual flagged row, and compare it with a similar unflagged formulation before drawing a conclusion.
Next check: pair one flagged product with a similar unflagged product from the same shelf category.
What else is usually in the same product as Acetic Acid
Across the 2,892 products on this site that list Acetic Acid, 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. Caramel Coloring shows up about 1.9x more often with Acetic Acid than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Acetic Acid products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 318 | 11% | 5.7% |
| Carrageenan | 202 | 7% | 4.5% |
| Red 40 | 137 | 4.7% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 134 | 4.6% | 4.8% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 123 | 4.3% | 2.4% |
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, 2026-08-02.
Function
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, PH CONTROL AGENT
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Source | Classification | Year |
|---|---|---|
| FDA SAFFA | GRAS | 2024 |
| CSPI Chemical Cuisine | Safe | 2024 |
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 5/5 | 2026 |
| Product footprint | 2,892 products | OpenFoodFacts |
FDA SAFFA database, CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings, OpenFoodFacts product index. See methodology.
Products Containing Acetic Acid
A sample of 16 of the 2,892 indexed products containing Acetic Acid, with each product's overall safety score.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Acetic Acid safe to eat? ▼
Acetic Acid has a PlainFoodSafe ingredient-screening score of 5/5. CSPI rates it "Safe." FDA SAFFA status: GRAS. These labels are not a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific safety determination.
What products contain Acetic Acid? ▼
Acetic Acid is found in 2,892 products in our database, spanning various food categories and brands.
What does Acetic Acid do in food? ▼
Acetic Acid is used as a antimicrobial agent, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, ph control agent in food products.
Citation notes
Regulatory status from FDA SAFFA; safety ratings from CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence from Open Food Facts. See our methodology. Retrieved and formatted by PlainFoodSafe.Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Ingredient figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.
