Polysorbate 20
Polysorbate 20 carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 66 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Polysorbate 20 appears in 66 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. Its FDA SAFFA status is “Approved.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 66
- catalogued products
- #4,131
- usage rank of 247,206
- 31
- named brands represented
- 58%
- 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.
Polysorbate 20: top-decile catalog footprint (#4,131 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #4,131
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 47 others that also appear in exactly 66 products, listed in more products than 98.3% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 58%
- Mean relative depth 58% across 66 parsed labels, slot 19.8 on average. Polysorbate 20 tends to sit in the lower 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 this page can and cannot answer
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 30 of 66 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare All Purpose Cleaner Lemon & Mint; Aloe Vera Gel; AlphaRet Overnight Cream to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Polysorbate 20 itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Condiments supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
30 of 66 linked records have some flagged component
All 66 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 Polysorbate 20
Across the 66 products on this site that list Polysorbate 20, 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 2.1x more often with Polysorbate 20 than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Polysorbate 20 products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 8 | 12.1% | 5.7% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 6 | 9.1% | 2.1% |
| Sucralose | 5 | 7.6% | 2.7% |
| Yellow 5 | 5 | 7.6% | 4.8% |
| Blue 1 | 5 | 7.6% | 4.2% |
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
BOILER WATER ADDITIVE, EMULSIFIER OR EMULSIFIER SALT, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT, STABILIZER OR THICKENER, SURFACE-ACTIVE AGENT
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 Polysorbate 20
Products Containing Polysorbate 20
16 busy labels from the 66 indexed products that list Polysorbate 20:
Polysorbate 20 vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Polysorbate 20 sits among other busy catalog rows (66 products, mean score 88.3/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Almond Protein; Alpha Amylase; Arôme. 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 Polysorbate 20 record
66 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Polysorbate 20 are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Open the product sample for Polysorbate 20 and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
- Compare Polysorbate 20 with a peer such as “Almond Protein” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. 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 Polysorbate 20
Does Polysorbate 20 carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Polysorbate 20 itself carries and FDA SAFFA status "Approved" 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 Polysorbate 20? ▼
Polysorbate 20 ranks in the top decile by product count (#4,131 of 247,206), appearing in 66 indexed products led by Condiments. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Polysorbate 20 do in food? ▼
Polysorbate 20 is recorded as a boiler water additive, emulsifier or emulsifier salt, flavoring agent or adjuvant, stabilizer or thickener, surface-active agent in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Polysorbate 20). 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.