Potassium Nitrate
Potassium Nitrate carries a source-backed screening score of 3/5 and appears in 94 indexed US food products.
Source-backed answer
Potassium Nitrate appears in 94 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.
- 94
- catalogued products
- #3,264
- usage rank of 247,206
- 26
- named brands represented
- 73%
- 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.
Potassium Nitrate sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#3,264 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #3,264
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 26 others that also appear in exactly 94 products, listed in more products than 98.7% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 73%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 94 products listing it (mean slot 10.8). Potassium Nitrate 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.
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
Audit the co-occurring flags first
93.6% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Potassium Nitrate as the trigger. Open records such as Antipasto Italiano; Baby Geno Salame; BLT with Beechwood Smoked Bacon and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 84.7/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 73% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
93.6% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 72 of 90 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 Potassium Nitrate
Across the 94 products on this site that list Potassium Nitrate, 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 36.3x more often with Potassium Nitrate than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Potassium Nitrate products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrite | 82 | 87.2% | 2.4% |
| Sodium Nitrate | 5 | 5.3% | 0.2% |
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
ANTIMICROBIAL AGENT, COLOR OR COLORING ADJUNCT, FLAVOR ENHANCER, FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT
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 Potassium Nitrate
Products Containing Potassium Nitrate
16 busy labels from the 94 indexed products that list Potassium Nitrate:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “100% Extra Virgin Olive Oil”)
Top-decile company for Potassium Nitrate: 94 listings averaging 84.7/100. Nearest count peers include “100% Extra Virgin Olive Oil”, “Coconut Fat”, “Natural Coffee Flavor”.
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 Potassium Nitrate record
Start from Potassium Nitrate's 94 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Review the sampled product records that list Potassium Nitrate to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Compare a peer
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Potassium Nitrate — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Potassium Nitrate sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
93.6% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Potassium Nitrate is the trigger. Where a source rating exists, Potassium Nitrate 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 Potassium Nitrate? ▼
Potassium Nitrate ranks in the top decile by product count (#3,264 of 247,206), appearing in 94 indexed products led by Meats and their products. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What function does Potassium Nitrate serve when it appears beside other flagged additives? ▼
Potassium Nitrate is recorded as a antimicrobial agent, color or coloring adjunct, flavor enhancer, flavoring agent or adjuvant 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 (Potassium Nitrate). 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.