caramel color
caramel color appears in 41 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 color appears in 41 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.
- 41
- catalogued products
- #5,704
- usage rank of 248,027
- 8
- named brands represented
- 52%
- 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.
How to use this page
Audit the co-occurring flags first
80.5% 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 color as the trigger. Open records such as Blue bunny, chocolate caramel cashew; Boneless pork rib shaped patty with bbq sauce & mashed potatoes; Monster cookie ice cream, monster cookie and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 74.4/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 52% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 41 of 41 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.
Where caramel color sits among catalogued ingredients
- Usage rank
- #5,704
- of 248,027 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 99 others that also appear in exactly 41 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 52%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 41 products listing it (mean slot 26.3). caramel color usually falls in the lower half of the list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.
Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 248,027 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.
What else is usually in the same product as caramel color
Across the 41 products on this site that list caramel color, 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 color than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of caramel color products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 20 | 48.8% | 5.7% |
| Carrageenan | 18 | 43.9% | 4.5% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 11 | 26.8% | 2.4% |
| BHT | 11 | 26.8% | 1.1% |
| BHA | 10 | 24.4% | 0.7% |
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, 2026-08-02.
Products Containing caramel color
A sample of 16 of the 41 indexed products containing caramel color, with each product's overall safety score.
Nationwide ingredients with similar catalog profiles
Peer axes for caramel color: product count (41) · mean score 74.4/100.
Similar mean product score
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is caramel color safe to eat? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to caramel color, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict for it. The page reports catalog prevalence and label position instead.
What products contain caramel color? ▼
caramel color is found in 41 products in our database, spanning various food categories and brands.
What does caramel color do in food? ▼
The current source record does not specify a technical effect for caramel color. Its product footprint is shown here without guessing why manufacturers use it.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (caramel color); safety ratings: CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence: Open Food Facts via PlainFoodSafe. Methodology · State regulations.
Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Ingredient figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.