Agar
Agar appears in 2,198 indexed US food products. No FDA SAFFA status or CSPI rating is attached in this snapshot, so this page reports prevalence rather than a safety verdict.
What the data can answer
Agar appears in 2,198 catalogued products, but this snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to it. This page therefore cannot answer whether the ingredient is safe from those sources. It can show how often it occurs, where it tends to sit on labels, and which kinds of products contain it.
- 2,198
- catalogued products
- #379
- usage rank of 247,206
- 465
- named brands represented
- 72%
- 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Audit the co-occurring flags first
53.6% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Agar as the trigger. Open records such as 10 Seaweed Salad Mix; 12 Big Smile Glazed Donuts; 2-slice fudge brownie cheesecake and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 78.9/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 72% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
53.6% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 2198 of 2198 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.
Agar: top-decile catalog footprint (#379 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #379
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.8% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 72%
- Averaged label depth puts Agar in the lower half of the list (72% of list length, mean slot 28.2). 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Agar
Across the 2,198 products on this site that list Agar, 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. Polysorbate 60 shows up about 19.4x more often with Agar than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Agar products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polysorbate 60 | 596 | 27.1% | 1.4% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 522 | 23.7% | 2.1% |
| Red 40 | 409 | 18.6% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 358 | 16.3% | 4.8% |
| Caramel Coloring | 291 | 13.2% | 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.
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 Agar
Products Containing Agar
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 2,198 indexed products containing Agar:
Agar vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Agar: 2,198 products, mean screening score 78.9/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Beta-carotene · Starch · Hydrolyzed Corn Protein. 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
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
What to do with this Agar record
Start from Agar's 2,198 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Open the product sample for Agar and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
- Compare Agar with a peer such as “Beta-carotene” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
- See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Agar — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Agar sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
53.6% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Agar is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Agar? ▼
Agar ranks in the top decile by product count (#379 of 247,206), appearing in 2,198 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Agar so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Agar appears in 2,198 products (#379 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Agar). 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.