Sorbic Acid
Sorbic Acid carries a source-backed screening score of 5/5 and appears in 5,662 indexed US food products. CSPI rates it “Safe.”
Source-backed answer
Sorbic Acid appears in 5,662 catalogued products. CSPI rates it “Safe.” Its FDA SAFFA status is “GRAS.” Those source labels describe the ingredient; they do not establish whether a particular product, dose, allergy, or diet is safe.
- 5,662
- catalogued products
- #194
- usage rank of 247,206
- 1,101
- 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.
Sorbic Acid: top-decile catalog footprint (#194 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #194
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, listed in more products than 99.9% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 73%
- Averaged label depth puts Sorbic Acid in the lower half of the list (73% of list length, mean slot 24.6). Compound ingredients and OCR noise mean this cannot stand in for quantity.
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
Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood
This is a mixed product neighborhood: 2331 of 5662 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare 1/3 Less Fat Than Cream Cheese; 100% Angus Beef Cheeseburger; 100% light whole wheat to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 0–100 score range to Sorbic Acid 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.
2331 of 5,662 linked records have some flagged component
All 5644 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.
What else is usually in the same product as Sorbic Acid
Across the 5,662 products on this site that list Sorbic Acid, 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 2.2x more often with Sorbic Acid than in the catalogue at large.
| Additive | Shared products | Share of Sorbic Acid products | Share of all products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caramel Coloring | 699 | 12.3% | 5.7% |
| Polysorbate 60 | 582 | 10.3% | 1.4% |
| Sodium Nitrite | 560 | 9.9% | 2.4% |
| Carrageenan | 482 | 8.5% | 4.5% |
| Titanium Dioxide | 346 | 6.1% | 2.1% |
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.
Function
FLAVORING AGENT OR ADJUVANT
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 Sorbic Acid
Products Containing Sorbic Acid
16 busy labels from the 5,662 indexed products that list Sorbic Acid:
Sorbic Acid vs other top-decile catalog footprints
Sorbic Acid sits among other busy catalog rows (5,662 products, mean score 88.6/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Dried Cranberries; Cashews; Rice. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.
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 Sorbic Acid record
5,662 product rows plus any FDA/CSPI fields on Sorbic Acid are the evidence base — drill into the listings that matter for your decision.
- Open the product sample for Sorbic Acid and read how the term sits on real packages. Open product sample
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Browse ingredient records
- Check the methodology for how FDA SAFFA, CSPI, and Open Food Facts rows are joined on this site. 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 Sorbic Acid
Does Sorbic Acid carry its own safety label in this catalog? ▼
This is a mixed neighborhood: some linked products carry a separate flag while others do not. Sorbic Acid itself carries a CSPI "Safe" rating and FDA SAFFA status "GRAS" where the source record supplies them. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.
Which product shelves show up most often with Sorbic Acid? ▼
Sorbic Acid ranks in the top decile by product count (#194 of 247,206), appearing in 5,662 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
What does Sorbic Acid do in food? ▼
Sorbic Acid is recorded as a flavoring agent or adjuvant in source technical-effect fields.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Sorbic Acid). 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.