Lactic Acid
Lactic Acid carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 18,371 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Lactic Acid appears in 18,371 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.
- 18,371
- catalogued products
- #49
- usage rank of 247,206
- 3,164
- named brands represented
- 67%
- 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 Lactic Acid - usage rank #49
- Usage rank
- #49
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 67%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 18,385 products listing it (mean slot 20.3). Lactic Acid usually falls in the lower 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 6987 of 18371 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 1 Wow!, Lollipop Bouquet; 100% durum wheat semolina pasta; 100% Wheat Bread to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Lactic Acid 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.
6987 of 18,371 linked records have some flagged component
All 18212 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Lactic Acid
Across the 18,371 products on this site that list Lactic Acid, 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 1.9x more often with Lactic Acid than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Lactic Acid products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 1,966 | 10.7% | 5.7% |
| Yellow 5 | 1,936 | 10.5% | 4.8% |
| Yellow 6 | 1,656 | 9% | 3.4% |
| Red 40 | 1,616 | 8.8% | 5.4% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 1,457 | 7.9% | 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
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, CURING OR PICKLING AGENT, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, PH CONTROL AGENT, SOLVENT OR VEHICLE
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 Lactic Acid
Products Containing Lactic Acid
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 18,371 indexed products containing Lactic Acid:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Blue 1”)
Lactic Acid sits among other busy catalog rows (18,371 products, mean score 86.9/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Blue 1; Carrageenan; Modified Food Starch. 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
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
What to do with this Lactic Acid record
Use the 18,371-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Lactic Acid before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Open product sample
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Browse ingredient records
- 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.
Questions readers ask about Lactic Acid
Does Lactic Acid carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Lactic Acid itself carries a CSPI "Safe" rating and FDA SAFFA status "GRAS" where the source record supplies them. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Lactic Acid? ▼
Lactic Acid ranks in the top decile by product count (#49 of 247,206), appearing in 18,371 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Lactic Acid do in food? ▼
Lactic Acid is recorded as a antimicrobial agent, curing or pickling agent, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant, ph control agent, solvent or vehicle in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Lactic Acid). 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.