Natural Caramel Flavor

Natural Caramel Flavor appears in 236 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

Natural Caramel Flavor appears in 236 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.

236
catalogued products
#1,737
usage rank of 247,206
111
named brands represented
75%
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

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 67 of 236 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 16-1 link - brown sugar breakfast sausage; 72% Dark Chocolate With Sea Salt And Caramel; Alessi bakeries, french macarons, chocolate, pistachio & salted caramel to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 10–100 score range to Natural Caramel Flavor itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.

67 of 236 linked records have some flagged component

All 236 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 10–100 score spread more informative than the average alone: investigate the low end, identify the actual flagged row, and compare it with a similar unflagged formulation before drawing a conclusion.

Next check: pair one flagged product with a similar unflagged product from the same shelf category.

Natural Caramel Flavor sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#1,737 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#1,737
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 8 others that also appear in exactly 239 products, listed in more products than 99.3% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
75%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 239 products listing it (mean slot 17.8). Natural Caramel Flavor 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.

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 Natural Caramel Flavor

Across the 236 products on this site that list Natural Caramel Flavor, 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 3.5x more often with Natural Caramel Flavor than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +14.2ppCaramel Coloring+14.2ppCarrageenan: +6.9ppCarrageenan+6.9ppMonk fruit extract: +4.6ppMonk fruit extract+4.6ppPolysorbate 80: +2.1ppPolysorbate 80+2.1ppYellow 5: -2.7ppYellow 5-2.7pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Natural Caramel Flavor products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Caramel Coloring
14.2pp
Carrageenan
6.9pp
Monk fruit extract
4.6pp
Polysorbate 80
2.1pp
Yellow 5
-2.7pp
Additive Shared products Share of Natural Caramel Flavor products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 47 19.9% 5.7%
Carrageenan 27 11.4% 4.5%
Monk fruit extract 12 5.1% 0.5%
Polysorbate 80 8 3.4% 1.3%
Yellow 5 5 2.1% 4.8%

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 Natural Caramel Flavor

Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 16 entities by Safety score (X) and Flagged ingredients on label (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. High score, still flaggedLow score, more flaggedHigh score, fewer flaggedLow score, fewer flagged 949698100102 00.511.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Natural Caramel Flavor
Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine.

Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Citrus Extract”)

Top-decile company for Natural Caramel Flavor: 236 listings averaging 96.3/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Citrus Extract; Ground Mustard; Organic Isomalto-oligosaccharides.

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.

Next steps from the Natural Caramel Flavor page

Use the 236-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.

  • Check the listed products containing Natural Caramel Flavor before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
  • Compare Natural Caramel Flavor with a peer such as “Citrus Extract” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
  • 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.

Questions readers ask about Natural Caramel Flavor

Does Natural Caramel Flavor carry its own safety label in this catalog?

This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to Natural Caramel Flavor. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.

Which product shelves show up most often with Natural Caramel Flavor?

Natural Caramel Flavor ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,737 of 247,206), appearing in 236 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Natural Caramel Flavor so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Natural Caramel Flavor appears in 236 products (#1,737 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Natural Caramel Flavor). 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.