Artificial Colors
Artificial Colors appears in 3,243 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
Artificial Colors appears in 3,243 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.
- 3,243
- catalogued products
- #290
- usage rank of 247,206
- 670
- named brands represented
- 68%
- 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.
What this page can and cannot answer
Audit the co-occurring flags first
81.8% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Artificial Colors as the trigger. Open records such as 1 Wow!, Lollipop Bouquet; 1/4 Sheet White Cake With Colored Icing; 10” Chocolate Cake Filled with Chocolate Mousse and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 44.6/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 68% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
81.8% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 3243 of 3243 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.
Artificial Colors sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#290 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #290
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 68%
- Mean relative depth 68% across 3,245 parsed labels, slot 13.9 on average. Artificial Colors 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Artificial Colors
Across the 3,243 products on this site that list Artificial Colors, 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. Red 40 shows up about 10.2x more often with Artificial Colors than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Artificial Colors products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red 40 | 1,792 | 55.3% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 1,698 | 52.4% | 4.8% |
| Blue 1 | 1,615 | 49.8% | 4.2% |
| Yellow 6 | 1,147 | 35.4% | 3.4% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 829 | 25.6% | 2.1% |
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 Artificial Colors
Products Containing Artificial Colors
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 3,243 indexed products containing Artificial Colors:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Cultured Pasteurized Milk”)
Artificial Colors sits among other busy catalog rows (3,243 products, mean score 44.6/100). Comparable product-count neighbours: Cultured Pasteurized Milk · Caffeine · Ammonium Bicarbonate. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.
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.
Using the Artificial Colors evidence
Use the 3,243-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Open the product sample for Artificial Colors and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
- Place Artificial Colors next to “Caffeine” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Open a peer record
- 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.
Artificial Colors — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Artificial Colors sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
81.8% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Artificial Colors is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Artificial Colors? ▼
Artificial Colors ranks in the top decile by product count (#290 of 247,206), appearing in 3,243 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Artificial Colors so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Artificial Colors appears in 3,243 products (#290 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Artificial Colors). 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.