Preservative
Preservative appears in 25,192 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
Preservative appears in 25,192 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.
- 25,192
- catalogued products
- #36
- usage rank of 247,206
- 3,009
- named brands represented
- 71%
- 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
Audit the co-occurring flags first
57.4% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Preservative as the trigger. Open records such as 1 Cal Sunflower Oil Cooking Spray; 1/2 Marble Grad Cake With Red Borders; 10 Flour Tortillas and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 80.5/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 71% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.
57.4% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient
Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 23965 of 25025 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.
Preservative: top-decile catalog footprint (#36 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #36
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 71%
- Averaged label depth puts Preservative in the lower half of the list (71% of list length, mean slot 18.5). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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 else is usually in the same product as Preservative
Across the 25,192 products on this site that list 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. Caramel Coloring shows up about 2.8x more often with Preservative than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Preservative products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 4,091 | 16.2% | 5.7% |
| Red 40 | 3,678 | 14.6% | 5.4% |
| Yellow 5 | 3,247 | 12.9% | 4.8% |
| Blue 1 | 2,462 | 9.8% | 4.2% |
| Yellow 6 | 2,244 | 8.9% | 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 Preservative
Products Containing Preservative
High-volume slice (16 of 25,192) for products naming Preservative:
High-volume peers for Preservative beside “Garlic Powder”
High-volume peers for Preservative: 25,192 products, mean screening score 80.5/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Garlic Powder · Color · High-fructose corn syrup. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
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.
Next steps from the Preservative page
Use the 25,192-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Review the sampled product records that list Preservative to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. See listed products
- Place Preservative next to “Color” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Open a peer record
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Preservative — common follow-ups
How should I read safety signals when Preservative sits in heavily flagged products? ▼
57.4% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Preservative is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.
Which product shelves show up most often with Preservative? ▼
Preservative ranks in the top decile by product count (#36 of 247,206), appearing in 25,192 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Preservative so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Preservative appears in 25,192 products (#36 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (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.