Starter
Starter appears in 105 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
Starter appears in 105 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.
- 105
- catalogued products
- #3,033
- usage rank of 247,206
- 43
- named brands represented
- 46%
- 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.
Starter: top-decile catalog footprint (#3,033 of 247,206)
- Usage rank
- #3,033
- of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product, tied with 18 others that also appear in exactly 105 products, listed in more products than 98.8% of them.
- Typical depth in an ingredient list
- 46%
- Mean relative depth 46% across 105 parsed labels, slot 8.7 on average. Starter tends to sit in the upper half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.
Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.
How to use this page
Use prevalence before concern
Only 9.5% of linked products carry any separately flagged ingredient. The stronger differentiator here is market placement: Starter spans 43 named brands and is led by the Plant-based foods and beverages group. Start with 4 Cheese Tortelloni; Abby's, Caraway Rye; Authentic Italian Lasagna when comparing real formulations. Because the flagged component may be something else, neither the low co-occurrence rate nor the 98.0/100 product average proves this ingredient safe.
43 named brands carry this ingredient
The processing evidence is heterogeneous rather than a single shelf pattern: the largest NOVA group contains 47 of 93 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 Starter
Products Containing Starter
A sample of 16 high-volume listings among the 105 indexed products containing Starter:
Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Active Yogurt Cultures”)
Starter sits among other busy catalog rows (105 products, mean score 98/100). Comparable product-count neighbours: Active Yogurt Cultures · Alpha Tocopherol · As Cholecalciferol. 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
Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.
What to do with this Starter record
Use the 105-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.
- Check the listed products containing Starter before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. See listed products
- Move to a second ingredient page and compare registry fields plus catalog mass side by side. Open a peer record
- Read how PlainFoodSafe joins source records before treating a screening label as a personal food or health conclusion. Open methodology
This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.
Questions readers ask about Starter
Why is there no FDA/CSPI verdict on Starter? ▼
This snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to Starter, so PlainFoodSafe does not present a source-backed safety verdict. The page reports catalog prevalence (#3,033 of 247,206 ingredients) and label position instead.
Which product shelves show up most often with Starter? ▼
Starter ranks in the top decile by product count (#3,033 of 247,206), appearing in 105 indexed products led by Plant-based foods and beverages. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.
Why is Starter so common on ingredient lists? ▼
The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Starter appears in 105 products (#3,033 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.
Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Starter). 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.