Protease
Protease appears in 265 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
Protease appears in 265 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.
- 265
- catalogued products
- #1,617
- usage rank of 247,206
- 118
- named brands represented
- 74%
- 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.
Protease: top-decile catalog footprint (#1,617 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #1,617
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 5 others that also appear in exactly 265 products, listed in more products than 99.3% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 74%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 265 products listing it (mean slot 29.9). Protease 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
Use prevalence before concern
Only 14% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Protease spans 118 named brands and is led by the Dietary supplements group. Start with 100% Pure Whey With Grass Fed Whey Isolates Vanilla Cream Slice Flavour; 100% whey protein blend; 70% Dark Cocoa KitKat when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 96.8/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
118 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 256 of 259 classified products, leaving a meaningful remainder elsewhere. This breadth is why the page reports label depth, category, and product examples separately. Those dimensions help locate comparable products; combining them into a stronger safety claim would hide the variation the catalog actually contains.
Next check: compare label position across two brands before treating prevalence as equivalent exposure.
What else is usually in the same product as Protease
Across the 265 products on this site that list Protease, 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. Sucralose shows up about 4.3x more often with Protease than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Protease products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sucralose | 31 | 11.7% | 2.7% |
| Acesulfame Potassium | 13 | 4.9% | 1.8% |
| Monk fruit extract | 13 | 4.9% | 0.5% |
| Carrageenan | 7 | 2.6% | 4.5% |
| Caramel Coloring | 5 | 1.9% | 5.7% |
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.
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 Protease
Products Containing Protease
16 busy labels from the 265 indexed products that list Protease:
Protease vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Protease: 265 products, mean screening score 96.8/100. Catalog-mass neighbours in view: 0.1% Sodium Benzoate; Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast With Rib Meat; Butteroil. 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
Score-axis peers only, mean screening score among ingredients with ≥50 scored products, not a second count list.
Using the Protease evidence
Use the 265-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Open the product sample for Protease and read how the term sits on real packages. See listed products
- Compare Protease with a peer such as “0.1% Sodium Benzoate” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. See source joins
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Protease — common follow-ups
Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Protease? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Protease, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#1,617 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.
Which product shelves show up most often with Protease? ▼
Protease ranks in the top decile by product count (#1,617 of 247,206), appearing in 265 indexed products led by Dietary supplements. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Protease so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Protease appears in 265 products (#1,617 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Protease). 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.