Potassium Sorbate Preservative
Potassium Sorbate Preservative appears in 222 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
Potassium Sorbate Preservative appears in 222 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.
- 222
- catalogued products
- #1,819
- usage rank of 247,206
- 62
- named brands represented
- 70%
- 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.
How to use this page
Audit the co-occurring flags first
64.4% 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 Sorbate Preservative as the trigger. Open records such as Angel Food Cake With Strawberry Icing; Apple Crumb Coffee Cake; Australian Style Red Soft Licorice and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 74.4/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 70% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
64.4% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 219 of 220 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.
Potassium Sorbate Preservative: top-decile catalog footprint (#1,819 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #1,819
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 3 others that also appear in exactly 222 products, listed in more products than 99.3% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 70%
- Averaged label depth puts Potassium Sorbate Preservative in the lower half of the list (70% of list length, mean slot 31.2). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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.
What else is usually in the same product as Potassium Sorbate Preservative
Across the 222 products on this site that list Potassium Sorbate Preservative, 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. Red 40 shows up about 4.8x more often with Potassium Sorbate Preservative than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Potassium Sorbate Preservative products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red 40 | 58 | 26.1% | 5.4% |
| Polysorbate 60 | 52 | 23.4% | 1.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 51 | 23% | 4.8% |
| Caramel Coloring | 41 | 18.5% | 5.7% |
| Yellow 6 | 39 | 17.6% | 3.4% |
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 Potassium Sorbate Preservative
Products Containing Potassium Sorbate Preservative
16 busy labels from the 222 indexed products that list Potassium Sorbate Preservative:
Potassium Sorbate Preservative vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Potassium Sorbate Preservative sits among other busy catalog rows (222 products, mean score 74.4/100). Comparable product-count neighbours: Brown Rice Crisp · Poppy Seed · Raising Agent. 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
Nearest other ingredients by mean product screening score (floored at ≥50 scored products), distinct from the count row.
What to do with this Potassium Sorbate Preservative record
Start from Potassium Sorbate Preservative's 222 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Open the product sample for Potassium Sorbate Preservative and read how the term sits on real packages. Open product sample
- Place Potassium Sorbate Preservative next to “Poppy Seed” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
- 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.
Potassium Sorbate Preservative — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Potassium Sorbate Preservative sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
64.4% 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 Sorbate Preservative is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Potassium Sorbate Preservative? ▼
Potassium Sorbate Preservative ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,819 of 247,206), appearing in 222 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Potassium Sorbate Preservative so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Potassium Sorbate Preservative appears in 222 products (#1,819 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Potassium Sorbate Preservative). 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.