Cayenne Pepper

Cayenne Pepper appears in 2,045 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

Cayenne Pepper appears in 2,045 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.

2,045
catalogued products
#400
usage rank of 247,206
778
named brands represented
78%
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.

Cayenne Pepper: top-decile catalog footprint (#400 of 247,206)

Usage rank
#400
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
78%
Mean relative depth 78% across 2,045 parsed labels, slot 20.2 on average. Cayenne Pepper tends to sit near the end of the captured list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.

Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 247,206 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.

How to use this page

Use prevalence before concern

Only 18% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Cayenne Pepper spans 778 named brands and is led by the Condiments group. Start with 100% all natural medium salsa, medium; 12pc shrimp tempura kabuki roll wr; 21 Seasoning Salute when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 97.8/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.

778 named brands carry this ingredient

The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 1336 of 1922 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 Cayenne Pepper

Across the 2,045 products on this site that list Cayenne Pepper, 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 1.9x more often with Cayenne Pepper than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +5.3ppCaramel Coloring+5.3ppCarrageenan: -0.8ppCarrageenan-0.8ppSodium Nitrite: -0.4ppSodium Nitrite-0.4ppPolysorbate 80: -0.3ppPolysorbate 80-0.3ppRed 40: -4.5ppRed 40-4.5pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Cayenne Pepper 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
5.3pp
Carrageenan
-0.8pp
Sodium Nitrite
-0.4pp
Polysorbate 80
-0.3pp
Red 40
-4.5pp
Additive Shared products Share of Cayenne Pepper products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 224 11% 5.7%
Carrageenan 76 3.7% 4.5%
Sodium Nitrite 41 2% 2.4%
Polysorbate 80 21 1% 1.3%
Red 40 18 0.9% 5.4%

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 Cayenne Pepper

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 Cayenne Pepper
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 “Vitamin A”)

Top-decile company for Cayenne Pepper: 2,045 listings averaging 97.8/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Vitamin A · Kale · Tbhq.

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.

Next steps from the Cayenne Pepper page

Start from Cayenne Pepper's 2,045 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Review the sampled product records that list Cayenne Pepper to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
  • Compare Cayenne Pepper with a peer such as “Vitamin A” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Open a peer record
  • Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. See source joins

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Questions readers ask about Cayenne Pepper

Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Cayenne Pepper?

This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Cayenne Pepper, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#400 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.

Which product shelves show up most often with Cayenne Pepper?

Cayenne Pepper ranks in the top decile by product count (#400 of 247,206), appearing in 2,045 indexed products led by Condiments. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Cayenne Pepper so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Cayenne Pepper appears in 2,045 products (#400 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Cayenne Pepper). 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.