Citric Acid
Citric Acid carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 91,634 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Citric Acid appears in 91,634 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “GRAS.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 91,634
- catalogued products
- #4
- usage rank of 248,027
- 12,135
- named brands represented
- 60%
- 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.
5/5 from FDA SAFFA + CSPI Chemical Cuisine
Where Citric Acid sits among catalogued ingredients
- Usage rank
- #4
- of 248,027 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 60%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 91,742 products listing it (mean slot 13.4). Citric Acid 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.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 37352 of 91634 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 0% Milkfat Cottage Cheese small curd fat free; 0% Milkfat Fat Free Small Curd Cottage Cheese; 0% milkfat fat free small curd cottage cheese to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Citric Acid 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.
All 90225 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 0–100 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Citric Acid
Across the 91,634 products on this site that list Citric Acid, 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. Red 40 shows up about 2.5x more often with Citric Acid than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Citric Acid products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red 40 | 12,499 | 13.6% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 9,015 | 9.8% | 4.8% |
| Caramel Coloring | 8,619 | 9.4% | 5.7% |
| Blue 1 | 8,547 | 9.3% | 4.2% |
| Yellow 6 | 6,672 | 7.3% | 3.4% |
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, 2026-08-02.
Function
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, ANTIOXIDANT, ENZYME, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, LEAVENING AGENT, PH CONTROL AGENT, SEQUESTRANT, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, SURFACE-ACTIVE AGENT
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Source | Classification | Year |
|---|---|---|
| FDA SAFFA | GRAS | 2024 |
| CSPI Chemical Cuisine | Safe | 2024 |
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 5/5 | 2026 |
| Product footprint | 91,634 products | OpenFoodFacts |
FDA SAFFA database, CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings, OpenFoodFacts product index. See methodology.
Products Containing Citric Acid
A sample of 16 of the 91,634 indexed products containing Citric Acid, with each product's overall safety score.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Citric Acid safe to eat? ▼
Citric Acid has a PlainFoodSafe ingredient-screening score of 5/5. CSPI rates it "Safe." FDA SAFFA status: GRAS. These labels are not a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific safety determination.
What products contain Citric Acid? ▼
Citric Acid is found in 91,634 products in our database, spanning various food categories and brands.
What does Citric Acid do in food? ▼
Citric Acid is used as a antimicrobial agent, antioxidant, enzyme, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, leavening agent, ph control agent, sequestrant, solvent or vehicle, surface-active agent in food products.
Citation notes
Regulatory status from FDA SAFFA; safety ratings from CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence from Open Food Facts. See our methodology. Retrieved and formatted by PlainFoodSafe.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.
