Gelatin

Gelatin carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 9,473 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”

Source-backed answer

Gelatin appears in 9,473 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.

9,473
catalogued products
#127
usage rank of 247,206
1,387
named brands represented
39%
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.

Gelatin: top-decile catalog footprint (#127 of 247,206)

Usage rank
#127
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
39%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 9,473 products listing it (mean slot 10.2). Gelatin usually falls in the upper half of the list; this position does not measure its amount because source formatting, compound ingredients and labeling exceptions vary.

Computed from parsed product ingredient lists (Open Food Facts). The ranking covers 247,206 ingredients that appear at least once. Neither usage rank nor label depth is a safety clearance.

What this page can and cannot answer

Audit the co-occurring flags first

63.1% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Gelatin as the trigger. Open records such as 0016500579793; 1 Wow!, Lollipop Bouquet; 1000mg Alaskan Fish Oil Mini and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 64.3/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 39% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.

63.1% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient

Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 9471 of 9471 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.

Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.

What else is usually in the same product as Gelatin

Across the 9,473 products on this site that list Gelatin, 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 6.9x more often with Gelatin than in the catalogue at large.

Red 40: +31.9ppRed 40+31.9ppBlue 1: +29.8ppBlue 1+29.8ppYellow 5: +25.6ppYellow 5+25.6ppYellow 6: +16.9ppYellow 6+16.9ppTitanium Dioxide: +10.7ppTitanium Dioxide+10.7pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Gelatin products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Red 40
31.9pp
Blue 1
29.8pp
Yellow 5
25.6pp
Yellow 6
16.9pp
Titanium Dioxide
10.7pp
Additive Shared products Share of Gelatin products Share of all products
Red 40 3,533 37.3% 5.4%
Blue 1 3,218 34% 4.2%
Yellow 5 2,883 30.4% 4.8%
Yellow 6 1,922 20.3% 3.4%
Titanium Dioxide 1,215 12.8% 2.1%

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

ANTICAKING AGENT OR FREE-FLOW AGENT, DRYING AGENT, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, FORMULATION AID, HUMECTANT, PROCESSING AID, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, SURFACE-FINISHING AGENT, TEXTURIZER

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 Gelatin

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 050100150 0246810 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Gelatin
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 “Mono And Diglycerides”)

Top-decile company for Gelatin: 9,473 listings averaging 64.3/100. Nearest count peers include “Mono And Diglycerides”, “Palm Kernel Oil”, “Flavoring”.

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 Gelatin page

9,473 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Gelatin are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.

  • Review the sampled product records that list Gelatin to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Browse linked labels
  • Compare Gelatin with a peer such as “Mono And Diglycerides” 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 Gelatin

How should I read safety signals when Gelatin sits in heavily flagged products?

63.1% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Gelatin is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Gelatin scores 5/5 on this site's screening scale and CSPI lists it as "Safe" with FDA SAFFA status "GRAS". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.

Which product shelves show up most often with Gelatin?

Gelatin ranks in the top decile by product count (#127 of 247,206), appearing in 9,473 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What function does Gelatin serve when it appears beside other flagged additives?

Gelatin is recorded as a anticaking agent or free-flow agent, drying agent, flavoring agent or adjuvant, formulation aid, humectant, processing aid, solvent or vehicle, stabilizer or thickener, surface-finishing agent, texturizer in source technical-effect fields. In high co-flag products, that function coexists with other caution-marked components — inspect the full list rather than isolating this role.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Gelatin). 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.