Parmesan
Parmesan appears in 454 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
Parmesan appears in 454 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.
- 454
- catalogued products
- #1,100
- usage rank of 247,206
- 160
- named brands represented
- 50%
- 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.
Reading this ingredient record
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 99 of 454 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 2 Cooking Sauces & Recipe; 3 Cheese Ravioli; 3 Cheese Ravioli Durum Semolina & Egg Pasta Stuffed With 3 Cheeses to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Parmesan itself. The ingredient most often sits in the upper half of the list, and Meals supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
99 of 454 linked records have some flagged component
All 450 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.
Parmesan: top-decile catalog footprint (#1,100 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #1,100
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 454 products, listed in more products than 99.6% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 50%
- Mean relative depth 50% across 454 parsed labels, slot 20.9 on average. Parmesan tends to sit in the upper half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
Derived by this site from the ingredient lists of every catalogued product (Open Food Facts), recomputed on each data refresh. 247,206 ingredients have at least one appearance and are ranked here. Usage and list position describe prevalence, not safety.
What else is usually in the same product as Parmesan
Across the 454 products on this site that list Parmesan, 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 2.8x more often with Parmesan than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Parmesan products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 30 | 6.6% | 2.4% |
| Carrageenan | 30 | 6.6% | 4.5% |
| Caramel Coloring | 26 | 5.7% | 5.7% |
| BHA | 24 | 5.3% | 0.7% |
| BHT | 22 | 4.8% | 1.1% |
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.
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 Parmesan
Products Containing Parmesan
High-volume slice (16 of 454) for products naming Parmesan:
High-volume peers for Parmesan beside “Ascorbyl Palmitate”
Top-decile company for Parmesan: 454 listings averaging 94.3/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Ascorbyl Palmitate · Organic Coconut Flour · Lentils.
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.
Using the Parmesan evidence
454 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Parmesan are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Parmesan before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Open product sample
- Compare Parmesan with a peer such as “Ascorbyl Palmitate” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
- 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Parmesan 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 Parmesan. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Parmesan? ▼
Parmesan ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,100 of 247,206), appearing in 454 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Parmesan so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Parmesan appears in 454 products (#1,100 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Parmesan). 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.