Flavor Enhancer
Flavor Enhancer appears in 557 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
Flavor Enhancer appears in 557 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.
- 557
- catalogued products
- #986
- usage rank of 247,206
- 158
- named brands represented
- 61%
- 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.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 190 of 557 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 555 tuna (h) 155g; A warming homestyle soup with chunks of potatoes, onions, carrots and herbs soup mix, chunky potato; All Natural Potstickers - Chicken & Vegetable Dumplings to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Flavor Enhancer 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.
190 of 557 linked records have some flagged component
All 556 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.
High-volume listing for Flavor Enhancer - usage rank #986
- Usage rank
- #986
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.6% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 61%
- Mean relative depth 61% across 558 parsed labels, slot 17.9 on average. Flavor Enhancer tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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 else is usually in the same product as Flavor Enhancer
Across the 557 products on this site that list Flavor Enhancer, 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 2.5x more often with Flavor Enhancer than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Flavor Enhancer products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 80 | 14.4% | 5.7% |
| Yellow 5 | 61 | 11% | 4.8% |
| Yellow 6 | 48 | 8.6% | 3.4% |
| Red 40 | 29 | 5.2% | 5.4% |
| TBHQ | 19 | 3.4% | 0.5% |
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 Flavor Enhancer
Products Containing Flavor Enhancer
High-volume slice (16 of 557) for products naming Flavor Enhancer:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “B2”)
High-volume peers for Flavor Enhancer: 557 products, mean screening score 90.2/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: B2; Calcium D-pantothenate; Yogurt. 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
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
Next steps from the Flavor Enhancer page
Start from Flavor Enhancer's 557 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Check the listed products containing Flavor Enhancer before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Compare Flavor Enhancer with a peer such as “B2” 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.
Flavor Enhancer — common follow-ups
Does Flavor Enhancer carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to Flavor Enhancer. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Flavor Enhancer? ▼
Flavor Enhancer ranks in the top decile by product count (#986 of 247,206), appearing in 557 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Flavor Enhancer so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Flavor Enhancer appears in 557 products (#986 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Flavor Enhancer). 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.