Cotija Cheese
Cotija Cheese appears in 81 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
Cotija Cheese appears in 81 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.
- 81
- catalogued products
- #3,639
- usage rank of 247,206
- 41
- named brands represented
- 52%
- 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.
Cotija Cheese sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#3,639 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #3,639
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 17 others that also appear in exactly 81 products, listed in more products than 98.5% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 52%
- Averaged label depth puts Cotija Cheese in the lower half of the list (52% of list length, mean slot 20.5). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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 this page can and cannot answer
Use prevalence before concern
Only 13.6% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Cotija Cheese spans 41 named brands and is led by the Frozen foods group. Start with Adobo Chicken With Rice Bowl; Avocado cilantro; Baby Bella Mushrooms Stuffed With Crab Seasoning Cheese Blend when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 99.2/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
41 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 72 of 80 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 Cotija Cheese
Across the 81 products on this site that list Cotija Cheese, 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. Carrageenan shows up about 2.5x more often with Cotija Cheese than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Cotija Cheese products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrageenan | 9 | 11.1% | 4.5% |
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 Cotija Cheese
Products Containing Cotija Cheese
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 81 indexed products containing Cotija Cheese:
Cotija Cheese vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Cotija Cheese: 81 products, mean screening score 99.2/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Cake Flour · Extra Fancy Durum Flour · Fruit And Vegetable Juice Color. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
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.
Using the Cotija Cheese evidence
Start from Cotija Cheese's 81 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Open the product sample for Cotija Cheese and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
- Place Cotija Cheese next to “Extra Fancy Durum Flour” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Open a peer record
- See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. Open 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 Cotija Cheese? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Cotija Cheese, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#3,639 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.
Which product shelves show up most often with Cotija Cheese? ▼
Cotija Cheese ranks in the top decile by product count (#3,639 of 247,206), appearing in 81 indexed products led by Frozen foods. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Cotija Cheese so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Cotija Cheese appears in 81 products (#3,639 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Cotija Cheese). 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.