Red 40 Color
Red 40 Color appears in 10 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
Red 40 Color appears in 10 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.
- 10
- catalogued products
- #15,180
- usage rank of 247,206
- 6
- named brands represented
- 100%
- 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
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 2 of 10 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Cherry pie filling; Pie filling & topping; Pie Filling & Topping to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 85–100 score range to Red 40 Color itself. The ingredient most often sits near the end of the captured list, and Cooking helpers supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
2 of 10 linked records have some flagged component
All 10 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 85–100 score spread more informative than the average alone: investigate the low end, identify the actual flagged row, and compare it with a similar unflagged formulation before drawing a conclusion.
Next check: pair one flagged product with a similar unflagged product from the same shelf category.
Red 40 Color sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#15,180 / 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #15,180
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1,209 others that also appear in exactly 10 products.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 100%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 10 products listing it (mean slot 13.3). Red 40 Color usually falls near the end of the captured 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.
How do the sampled products compare?
Each point is one of the 10 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 Red 40 Color
Products Containing Red 40 Color
High-volume slice (10 of 10) for products naming Red 40 Color:
Red 40 Color vs other top-decile catalog footprints
High-volume peers for Red 40 Color: 10 products, mean screening score 97.5/100. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.
Similar mean product score
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
Next steps from the Red 40 Color page
Start from Red 40 Color's 10 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.
- Review the sampled product records that list Red 40 Color to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. See listed products
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Browse ingredient records
- 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.
Red 40 Color — common follow-ups
Does Red 40 Color carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. This snapshot does not attach a standalone FDA/CSPI verdict to Red 40 Color. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Red 40 Color? ▼
Red 40 Color ranks in the top decile by product count (#15,180 of 247,206), appearing in 10 indexed products led by Cooking helpers. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Red 40 Color so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Red 40 Color appears in 10 products (#15,180 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Red 40 Color). 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.