Seaweed

Seaweed appears in 861 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

Seaweed appears in 861 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.

861
catalogued products
#727
usage rank of 247,206
285
named brands represented
52%
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.

Seaweed sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#727 / 247,206)

Usage rank
#727
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.7% of them.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
52%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 866 products listing it (mean slot 17.6). Seaweed 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.

What this page can and cannot answer

Use prevalence before concern

Only 19.7% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Seaweed spans 285 named brands and is led by the Meals group. Start with 12Pc Shrimp Temp Kabuki Roll, Shrimp Temp Kabuki; 12pc shrimp tempura kabuki roll wr; 3j Foods, Roasted Seaweed With Sesame Oil when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 94.5/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.

285 named brands carry this ingredient

The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 596 of 802 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 Seaweed

Across the 861 products on this site that list Seaweed, 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 1.8x more often with Seaweed than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +4.8ppCaramel Coloring+4.8ppYellow 5: +1.9ppYellow 5+1.9ppBlue 1: +0.9ppBlue 1+0.9ppYellow 6: +0.5ppYellow 6+0.5ppCarrageenan: -1.8ppCarrageenan-1.8pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Seaweed products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Caramel Coloring
4.8pp
Yellow 5
1.9pp
Blue 1
0.9pp
Yellow 6
0.5pp
Carrageenan
-1.8pp
Additive Shared products Share of Seaweed products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 90 10.5% 5.7%
Yellow 5 58 6.7% 4.8%
Blue 1 44 5.1% 4.2%
Yellow 6 34 3.9% 3.4%
Carrageenan 23 2.7% 4.5%

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 Seaweed

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 406080100120 01234 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Seaweed
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.

Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Sweet Potatoes”)

Top-decile company for Seaweed: 861 listings averaging 94.5/100. Comparable product-count neighbours: Sweet Potatoes · Organic Non-fat Dry Milk · Anticaking Agent.

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.

What to do with this Seaweed record

861 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Seaweed are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.

  • Review the sampled product records that list Seaweed to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
  • Compare Seaweed with a peer such as “Sweet Potatoes” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Browse ingredient records
  • Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. Open methodology

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Questions readers ask about Seaweed

Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Seaweed?

This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Seaweed, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#727 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.

Which product shelves show up most often with Seaweed?

Seaweed ranks in the top decile by product count (#727 of 247,206), appearing in 861 indexed products led by Meals. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Seaweed so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Seaweed appears in 861 products (#727 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Seaweed). 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.