Caramelized Onions

Caramelized Onions appears in 143 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

Caramelized Onions appears in 143 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.

143
catalogued products
#2,428
usage rank of 247,206
57
named brands represented
51%
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.

Caramelized Onions: top-decile catalog footprint (#2,428 of 247,206)

Usage rank
#2,428
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 10 others that also appear in exactly 143 products, listed in more products than 99% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
51%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 143 products listing it (mean slot 18.6). Caramelized Onions 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.

Reading this ingredient record

Use prevalence before concern

Only 19.6% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Caramelized Onions spans 57 named brands and is led by the Frozen foods group. Start with Artichoke Stuffed Chicken; Bacon & Gouda Egg Frittatas; Bacon and Carmelized onion sausage when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 96.9/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.

57 named brands carry this ingredient

The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 103 of 136 classified products, leaving a meaningful remainder elsewhere. This breadth is why the page reports label depth, category, and product examples separately. Those dimensions help locate comparable products; combining them into a stronger safety claim would hide the variation the catalog actually contains.

Next check: compare label position across two brands before treating prevalence as equivalent exposure.

What else is usually in the same product as Caramelized Onions

Across the 143 products on this site that list Caramelized Onions, 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. Sodium Nitrite shows up about 3.8x more often with Caramelized Onions than in the catalogue at large.

Sodium Nitrite: +6.7ppSodium Nitrite+6.7ppCarrageenan: +4.6ppCarrageenan+4.6ppCaramel Coloring: +3.4ppCaramel Coloring+3.4pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Caramelized Onions products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

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

Sodium Nitrite
6.7pp
Carrageenan
4.6pp
Caramel Coloring
3.4pp
Additive Shared products Share of Caramelized Onions products Share of all products
Sodium Nitrite 13 9.1% 2.4%
Carrageenan 13 9.1% 4.5%
Caramel Coloring 13 9.1% 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 Caramelized Onions

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 7580859095100105 00.511.522.5 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Caramelized Onions
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.

High-volume peers for Caramelized Onions beside “Organic Bbq Seasoning”

Top-decile company for Caramelized Onions: 143 listings averaging 96.9/100. Nearest count peers include “Organic Bbq Seasoning”, “Clams”, “Corn Fiber”.

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.

What to do with this Caramelized Onions record

Use the 143-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.

  • Open the product sample for Caramelized Onions and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
  • Compare Caramelized Onions with a peer such as “Organic Bbq Seasoning” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
  • 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Caramelized Onions?

This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Caramelized Onions, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#2,428 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.

Which product shelves show up most often with Caramelized Onions?

Caramelized Onions ranks in the top decile by product count (#2,428 of 247,206), appearing in 143 indexed products led by Frozen foods. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Caramelized Onions so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Caramelized Onions appears in 143 products (#2,428 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Caramelized Onions). 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.