Imitation Cheese
Imitation Cheese appears in 35 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
Imitation Cheese appears in 35 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.
- 35
- catalogued products
- #6,340
- usage rank of 247,206
- 3
- named brands represented
- 73%
- 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.
What this page can and cannot answer
Audit the co-occurring flags first
74.3% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Imitation Cheese as the trigger. Open records such as Big y, pizza bites, cheese; Combination pizza bites; Combination Pizza Bites and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 67.7/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 73% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
74.3% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 35 of 35 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.
High-volume listing for Imitation Cheese - usage rank #6,340
- Usage rank
- #6,340
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 111 others that also appear in exactly 35 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 73%
- Mean relative depth 73% across 35 parsed labels, slot 45.5 on average. Imitation Cheese tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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 else is usually in the same product as Imitation Cheese
Across the 35 products on this site that list Imitation 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. Sodium Nitrite shows up about 28.6x more often with Imitation Cheese than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Imitation Cheese products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 24 | 68.6% | 2.4% |
| BHA | 23 | 65.7% | 0.7% |
| BHT | 23 | 65.7% | 1.1% |
| Caramel Coloring | 15 | 42.9% | 5.7% |
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 Imitation Cheese
Products Containing Imitation Cheese
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 35 indexed products containing Imitation Cheese:
Imitation Cheese vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Imitation Cheese: 35 listings averaging 67.7/100.
Similar mean product score
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
What to do with this Imitation Cheese record
Use the 35-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Imitation Cheese before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Open product sample
- Browse another ingredient record and keep the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields in view. Compare a peer
- 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.
Questions readers ask about Imitation Cheese
How should I read safety signals when Imitation Cheese sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
74.3% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Imitation Cheese is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Imitation Cheese? ▼
Imitation Cheese ranks in the top decile by product count (#6,340 of 247,206), appearing in 35 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Imitation Cheese so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Imitation Cheese appears in 35 products (#6,340 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Imitation 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.