Parmesan Cheese
Parmesan Cheese appears in 5,827 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 Cheese appears in 5,827 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.
- 5,827
- catalogued products
- #187
- usage rank of 247,206
- 1,066
- named brands represented
- 48%
- 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: 1436 of 5827 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese; 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese; 100% grated parmesan cheese to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Parmesan Cheese 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.
1436 of 5,827 linked records have some flagged component
All 5719 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 Cheese sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#187 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #187
- 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
- 48%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 5,834 products listing it (mean slot 19.0). Parmesan Cheese 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.
Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.
What else is usually in the same product as Parmesan Cheese
Across the 5,827 products on this site that list Parmesan 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. Caramel Coloring shows up about 1.8x more often with Parmesan Cheese than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Parmesan Cheese products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 594 | 10.2% | 5.7% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 433 | 7.4% | 2.4% |
| Carrageenan | 404 | 6.9% | 4.5% |
| BHT | 364 | 6.2% | 1.1% |
| BHA | 356 | 6.1% | 0.7% |
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 Parmesan Cheese
Products Containing Parmesan Cheese
High-volume slice (16 of 5,827) for products naming Parmesan Cheese:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Organic Basil”)
Parmesan Cheese sits among other busy catalog rows (5,827 products, mean score 94.6/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Organic Basil; Corn Oil; Monoglycerides. 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.
Next steps from the Parmesan Cheese page
5,827 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Parmesan Cheese are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Parmesan Cheese before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Open product sample
- Compare Parmesan Cheese with a peer such as “Organic Basil” 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. Open methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Questions readers ask about Parmesan Cheese
Does Parmesan Cheese 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 Cheese. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Parmesan Cheese? ▼
Parmesan Cheese ranks in the top decile by product count (#187 of 247,206), appearing in 5,827 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Parmesan Cheese so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Parmesan Cheese appears in 5,827 products (#187 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Parmesan 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.