Caramel Base
Caramel Base appears in 47 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
Caramel Base appears in 47 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.
- 47
- catalogued products
- #5,176
- usage rank of 247,206
- 22
- named brands represented
- 56%
- 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
72.3% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Caramel Base as the trigger. Open records such as All The Good Things; Blasts!, Frozen Dairy Dessert, Golden Oreo Cookies & Cream, Golden Vanilla And Sweet Cream Flavor With Other Natural Flavors And Golden Oreo Cookie Pieces; Caramel & Praline Pecans and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 94.0/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 56% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
72.3% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 47 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.
Caramel Base 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
- 56%
- Mean relative depth 56% across 47 parsed labels, slot 15.8 on average. Caramel Base 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 Caramel Base
Across the 47 products on this site that list Caramel Base, 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 8.6x more often with Caramel Base than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Caramel Base products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 23 | 48.9% | 5.7% |
| Carrageenan | 22 | 46.8% | 4.5% |
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 Caramel Base
Products Containing Caramel Base
16 busy labels from the 47 indexed products that list Caramel Base:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass
Caramel Base sits among other busy catalog rows (47 products, mean score 94/100). Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.
Similar mean product score
Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.
Next steps from the Caramel Base page
Use the 47-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Caramel Base before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Browse another ingredient record and keep the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields in view. Open a peer record
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. Read the 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 Caramel Base sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
72.3% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Caramel Base is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Caramel Base? ▼
Caramel Base ranks in the top decile by product count (#5,176 of 247,206), appearing in 47 indexed products led by Desserts. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Caramel Base so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Caramel Base appears in 47 products (#5,176 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Caramel Base). 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.