Sorbate
Sorbate appears in 65 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
Sorbate appears in 65 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.
- 65
- catalogued products
- #4,179
- usage rank of 247,206
- 41
- named brands represented
- 73%
- 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.
How to use this page
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 25 of 65 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Bacon & Aged Cheddar Mac & Cheese Sauce, Bacon & Aged Cheddar; Buttermilk Ranch Dressing; Buttery Spread to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Sorbate itself. The ingredient most often sits in the lower half of the list, and Snacks supplies the most useful like-for-like starting point for a label review.
25 of 65 linked records have some flagged component
All 62 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 0–100 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.
Sorbate: top-decile catalog footprint (#4,179 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #4,179
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 31 others that also appear in exactly 65 products, listed in more products than 98.3% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 73%
- Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 65 products listing it (mean slot 22.6). Sorbate 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.
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.
What else is usually in the same product as Sorbate
Across the 65 products on this site that list Sorbate, 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 2.7x more often with Sorbate than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Sorbate products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 10 | 15.4% | 5.7% |
| Sucralose | 6 | 9.2% | 2.7% |
| Acesulfame Potassium | 5 | 7.7% | 1.8% |
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 Sorbate
Products Containing Sorbate
High-volume slice (16 of 65) for products naming Sorbate:
Sorbate vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Top-decile company for Sorbate: 65 listings averaging 89.8/100. Nearest count peers include “Ancho Chili Powder”, “Natural And Artificial Maple Flavor”, “Cooked Mechanically Separated Chicken Meat”.
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 Sorbate page
Use the 65-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Review the sampled product records that list Sorbate to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. Open product sample
- 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. 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 Sorbate
Does Sorbate 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 Sorbate. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Sorbate? ▼
Sorbate ranks in the top decile by product count (#4,179 of 247,206), appearing in 65 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Sorbate so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Sorbate appears in 65 products (#4,179 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Sorbate). 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.