Blue #1
Blue #1 appears in 1,938 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
Blue #1 appears in 1,938 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.
- 1,938
- catalogued products
- #412
- usage rank of 247,206
- 480
- named brands represented
- 86%
- 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
56.9% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Blue #1 as the trigger. Open records such as 1% lowfat milk; 100% real ice cream; 10” Chocolate Cake Filled with Chocolate Mousse and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 86.5/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 86% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
56.9% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 1938 of 1938 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.
Blue #1 sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#412 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #412
- 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
- 86%
- Mean relative depth 86% across 1,938 parsed labels, slot 19.0 on average. Blue #1 tends to sit near the end of the captured list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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 Blue #1
Across the 1,938 products on this site that list Blue #1, 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. Yellow 5 shows up about 3.9x more often with Blue #1 than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Blue #1 products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow 5 | 366 | 18.9% | 4.8% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 267 | 13.8% | 2.1% |
| Red 40 | 189 | 9.8% | 5.4% |
| Carrageenan | 159 | 8.2% | 4.5% |
| Caramel Coloring | 105 | 5.4% | 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 Blue #1
Products Containing Blue #1
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 1,938 indexed products containing Blue #1:
Blue #1 vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Blue #1: 1,938 listings averaging 86.5/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Lime Juice Concentrate · Pepper · Corn Maltodextrin.
Similar product count
Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).
Similar mean product score
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
What to do with this Blue #1 record
Use the 1,938-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Blue #1 before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Compare a peer
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Blue #1 — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Blue #1 sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
56.9% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Blue #1 is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Blue #1? ▼
Blue #1 ranks in the top decile by product count (#412 of 247,206), appearing in 1,938 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Blue #1 so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Blue #1 appears in 1,938 products (#412 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Blue #1). 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.