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 247,206
- 11,312
- 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.
Citric Acid: top-decile catalog footprint (#4 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #4
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 60%
- Mean relative depth 60% across 91,742 parsed labels, slot 13.4 on average. Citric Acid tends to sit in the lower half of the 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
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.
37352 of 91,634 linked records have some flagged component
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, 2026-09-01.
Function
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, ANTIOXIDANT, ENZYME, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, LEAVENING AGENT, PH CONTROL AGENT, SEQUESTRANT, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, SURFACE-ACTIVE AGENT
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 Citric Acid
Products Containing Citric Acid
16 busy labels from the 91,634 indexed products that list Citric Acid:
High-volume peers for Citric Acid beside “Natural Flavor”
Top-decile company for Citric Acid: 91,634 listings averaging 84.4/100. Nearest count peers include “Natural Flavor”, “Folic Acid”, “Riboflavin”.
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.
What to do with this Citric Acid record
91,634 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Citric Acid are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Citric Acid before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Open product sample
- Compare Citric Acid with a peer such as “Natural Flavor” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
- See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. 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 Citric Acid
Does Citric Acid carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Citric Acid itself carries a CSPI "Safe" rating and FDA SAFFA status "GRAS" where the source record supplies them. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Citric Acid? ▼
Citric Acid ranks in the top decile by product count (#4 of 247,206), appearing in 91,634 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Citric Acid do in food? ▼
Citric Acid is recorded 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 source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Citric Acid). 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.