Sa

Sa appears in 51 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

Sa appears in 51 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.

51
catalogued products
#4,904
usage rank of 247,206
35
named brands represented
91%
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.

Sa sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#4,904 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#4,904
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 66 others that also appear in exactly 51 products.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
91%
Mean relative depth 91% across 51 parsed labels, slot 16.9 on average. Sa tends to sit near the end of the captured list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.

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 to use this page

Use prevalence before concern

Only 11.8% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Sa spans 35 named brands and is led by the Undefined group. Start with Apple Crisp; Assorted Chocolates; Baked Multigrain Pita Chips when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 97.4/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.

35 named brands carry this ingredient

The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 43 of 50 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.

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 Sa

Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 16 entities by Safety score (X) and Flagged ingredients on label (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. High score, still flaggedLow score, more flaggedHigh score, fewer flaggedLow score, fewer flagged 99.9100.0100.0100100.0100.0100.1 00.00.00.1 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Sa
Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine.

Sa vs other top-decile catalog footprints

High-volume peers for Sa: 51 products, mean screening score 97.4/100. Nearest count peers include “Agar Gum”, “Aged Red Pepper”, “Alcohol Denat”. 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 Sa page

Use the 51-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.

  • Open the product sample for Sa and read how the term sits on real packages. Browse linked labels
  • Place Sa next to “Aged Red Pepper” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Open a peer record
  • 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.

Questions readers ask about Sa

Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Sa?

This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Sa, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#4,904 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.

Which product shelves show up most often with Sa?

Sa ranks in the top decile by product count (#4,904 of 247,206), appearing in 51 indexed products led by Undefined. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Sa so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Sa appears in 51 products (#4,904 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Sa). 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.