Kelp
Kelp carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 235 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Kelp appears in 235 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. 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.
- 235
- catalogued products
- #1,737
- usage rank of 247,206
- 80
- 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.
High-volume listing for Kelp - usage rank #1,737
- Usage rank
- #1,737
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 8 others that also appear in exactly 239 products, listed in more products than 99.3% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 61%
- Mean relative depth 61% across 239 parsed labels, slot 17.6 on average. Kelp 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Use prevalence before concern
Only 6.4% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Kelp spans 80 named brands and is led by the Snacks group. Start with 10 Seaweed Salad Mix; 12 Organic Protein Bars Variety Pack - Peanut Butter, Dark Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter with Sea Salt; All-in One Plant Protein + Superfoods when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 99.4/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
80 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 135 of 219 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 Kelp
Across the 235 products on this site that list Kelp, 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.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Kelp products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 13 | 5.5% | 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.
Function
FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT
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 Kelp
Products Containing Kelp
16 busy labels from the 235 indexed products that list Kelp:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Added To Maintain Freshness”)
Kelp sits among other busy catalog rows (235 products, mean score 99.4/100). Comparable product-count neighbours: Added To Maintain Freshness · Celery Extract · Diluted With Water To 5% Acidity. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.
Similar product count
Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).
Similar mean product score
Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.
Using the Kelp evidence
Start from Kelp's 235 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Open the product sample for Kelp and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
- Place Kelp next to “Celery Extract” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Open methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Kelp — common follow-ups
What do the source ratings say about Kelp? ▼
Kelp has a PlainFoodSafe ingredient-screening score of 3/5. FDA SAFFA status: GRAS. With only 6.4% co-flag overlap in linked products, prevalence and label position often matter as much as the registry labels — and none of them establish product-level safety.
Which product shelves show up most often with Kelp? ▼
Kelp ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,737 of 247,206), appearing in 235 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Kelp do in food? ▼
Kelp is recorded as a flavoring agent or adjuvant in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Kelp). 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.