Alginate
Alginate carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 47 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Alginate appears in 47 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” No FDA SAFFA status is attached. Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 47
- catalogued products
- #5,176
- usage rank of 247,206
- 26
- 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.
Alginate sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#5,176 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #5,176
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 83 others that also appear in exactly 47 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 66%
- Mean relative depth 66% across 47 parsed labels, slot 23.6 on average. Alginate tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
Computed from parsed product ingredient lists (Open Food Facts). The ranking covers 247,206 ingredients that appear at least once. Neither usage rank nor label depth is a safety clearance.
Reading this ingredient record
Audit the co-occurring flags first
61.7% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Alginate as the trigger. Open records such as 2 Layer Cake; 2 Layer Italian Cream Cake; Apple strudel and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 77.1/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 66% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
61.7% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 42 of 47 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 Alginate
Across the 47 products on this site that list Alginate, 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 19.8x more often with Alginate than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Alginate products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polysorbate 60 | 13 | 27.7% | 1.4% |
| Red 40 | 10 | 21.3% | 5.4% |
| Propyl Gallate | 8 | 17% | 0.2% |
| Yellow 5 | 8 | 17% | 4.8% |
| Blue 2 | 7 | 14.9% | 0.9% |
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
Thickener
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 Alginate
Products Containing Alginate
16 busy labels from the 47 indexed products that list Alginate:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass
High-volume peers for Alginate: 47 products, mean screening score 77.1/100. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
Similar mean product score
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
Using the Alginate evidence
47 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Alginate are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Review the sampled product records that list Alginate to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Open a peer record
- 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 Alginate sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
61.7% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Alginate is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Alginate scores 5/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Safe". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Alginate? ▼
Alginate ranks in the top decile by product count (#5,176 of 247,206), appearing in 47 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Alginate serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Alginate is recorded as a thickener 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 (Alginate). 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.