Polyvinyl Alcohol

Polyvinyl Alcohol carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 50 indexed US food products.

Source-backed answer

Polyvinyl Alcohol appears in 50 catalogued products. CSPI has no rating attached in this snapshot. Its FDA SAFFA status is “Prior Sanctioned.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.

50
catalogued products
#4,971
usage rank of 247,206
13
named brands represented
68%
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.

Polyvinyl Alcohol sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#4,971 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#4,971
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 72 others that also appear in exactly 50 products.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
68%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 50 products listing it (mean slot 16.7). Polyvinyl Alcohol 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

Audit the co-occurring flags first

70% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Polyvinyl Alcohol as the trigger. Open records such as 600 Calcium Supplement; Allergy medicine; B-Complex, Plus Vitamin C and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 81.0/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 68% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.

70% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient

Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 49 of 49 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.

Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.

What else is usually in the same product as Polyvinyl Alcohol

Across the 50 products on this site that list Polyvinyl Alcohol, 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. Titanium Dioxide shows up about 24.8x more often with Polyvinyl Alcohol than in the catalogue at large.

Titanium Dioxide: +49.9ppTitanium Dioxide+49.9ppPolysorbate 80: +10.7ppPolysorbate 80+10.7ppRed 40: +6.6ppRed 40+6.6ppBHT: +10.9ppBHT+10.9ppSucralose: +7.3ppSucralose+7.3pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Polyvinyl Alcohol products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Titanium Dioxide
49.9pp
Polysorbate 80
10.7pp
Red 40
6.6pp
BHT
10.9pp
Sucralose
7.3pp
Additive Shared products Share of Polyvinyl Alcohol products Share of all products
Titanium Dioxide 26 52% 2.1%
Polysorbate 80 6 12% 1.3%
Red 40 6 12% 5.4%
BHT 6 12% 1.1%
Sucralose 5 10% 2.7%

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

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 Polyvinyl Alcohol

Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 16 entities by Safety score (X) and Flagged ingredients on label (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. High score, still flaggedLow score, more flaggedHigh score, fewer flaggedLow score, fewer flagged 20406080100120 01234 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Polyvinyl Alcohol
Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine.

High-volume peers for Polyvinyl Alcohol beside “2% Dv”

Top-decile company for Polyvinyl Alcohol: 50 listings averaging 81/100. Nearest count peers include “2% Dv”, “5 %”, “Active Yogurt With L. Bulgaricus”.

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.

What to do with this Polyvinyl Alcohol record

Start from Polyvinyl Alcohol's 50 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Open the product sample for Polyvinyl Alcohol and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
  • Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Compare a peer
  • See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. Read the methodology

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Questions readers ask about Polyvinyl Alcohol

How should I read safety signals when Polyvinyl Alcohol sits in heavily flagged products?

70% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Polyvinyl Alcohol is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Polyvinyl Alcohol scores 3/5 on this site's screening scale with FDA SAFFA status "Prior Sanctioned". None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.

Which product shelves show up most often with Polyvinyl Alcohol?

Polyvinyl Alcohol ranks in the top decile by product count (#4,971 of 247,206), appearing in 50 indexed products led by Dietary supplements. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

What function does Polyvinyl Alcohol serve when it appears beside other flagged additives?

Polyvinyl Alcohol is recorded as a solvent or vehicle in source technical-effect fields. In high co-flag products, that function coexists with other caution-marked components — inspect the full list rather than isolating this role.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Polyvinyl Alcohol). 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.