Red Onion
Red Onion appears in 612 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 Onion appears in 612 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.
- 612
- catalogued products
- #924
- usage rank of 247,206
- 185
- named brands represented
- 63%
- 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: 142 of 612 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 18g Protein Black Bean Burger; Abobo chicken enchiladas; Ahold, spinach dip to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 30–100 score range to Red Onion itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Meals supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
142 of 612 linked records have some flagged component
All 566 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 30–100 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 Onion: top-decile catalog footprint (#924 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #924
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 1 other that also appear in exactly 612 products, listed in more products than 99.6% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 63%
- Mean relative depth 63% across 612 parsed labels, slot 23.8 on average. Red Onion tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
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 Red Onion
Across the 612 products on this site that list Red Onion, 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.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Red Onion products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 51 | 8.3% | 5.7% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 50 | 8.2% | 2.4% |
| Carrageenan | 46 | 7.5% | 4.5% |
| BHA | 26 | 4.2% | 0.7% |
| BHT | 25 | 4.1% | 1.1% |
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 Red Onion
Products Containing Red Onion
High-volume slice (16 of 612) for products naming Red Onion:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Pantothenic Acid”)
High-volume peers for Red Onion: 612 products, mean screening score 95.8/100. Nearest count peers include “Pantothenic Acid”, “Processing Aid”, “Whole Wheat”. 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
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
Next steps from the Red Onion page
612 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Red Onion are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Check the listed products containing Red Onion before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
- Place Red Onion next to “Processing Aid” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
- See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. Read the methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Red Onion 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 Onion. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Red Onion? ▼
Red Onion ranks in the top decile by product count (#924 of 247,206), appearing in 612 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Red Onion so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Red Onion appears in 612 products (#924 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Red Onion). 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.