Sulfite

Sulfite 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

Sulfite 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
38
named brands represented
70%
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.

What this page can and cannot answer

Separate this ingredient from its product neighborhood

This is a mixed product neighborhood: 22 of 65 records have some flagged component, while the rest do not. Compare Antioxidant Fresh Spinach, Red Quinoa, Cherry Tomatoes, Dried Cranberries, Crispy Kale, Orange Carrots, Red Cabbage, And Roasted Pecans With Blueberry Vinaigrette Power Salad, Antioxidant; Apple cinnamon muffin mix; Apple fruit pie to see how surrounding formulations change; do not assign their 70–100 score range to Sulfite 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.

22 of 65 linked records have some flagged component

All 63 NOVA-classified records cluster most heavily in Group 4, while the first-category labels split across several shelves. That makes the 70–100 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.

Sulfite sits in the busiest tenth of the catalog (#4,179 / 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
70%
Of the way down the captured list, averaged across the 65 products listing it (mean slot 20.4). Sulfite 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.

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.

What else is usually in the same product as Sulfite

Across the 65 products on this site that list Sulfite, 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 3x more often with Sulfite than in the catalogue at large.

Caramel Coloring: +11.2ppCaramel Coloring+11.2ppCarrageenan: +9.3ppCarrageenan+9.3ppSucralose: +5ppSucralose+5pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Sulfite 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
11.2pp
Carrageenan
9.3pp
Sucralose
5pp
Additive Shared products Share of Sulfite products Share of all products
Caramel Coloring 11 16.9% 5.7%
Carrageenan 9 13.8% 4.5%
Sucralose 5 7.7% 2.7%

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 Sulfite

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 708090100110 01234 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Sulfite
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.

High-volume peers for Sulfite beside “Ancho Chili Powder”

Sulfite sits among other busy catalog rows (65 products, mean score 96.2/100). Catalog-mass neighbours in view: Ancho Chili Powder; Natural And Artificial Maple Flavor; Cooked Mechanically Separated Chicken Meat. Count peers and score peers are listed separately on purpose.

Similar mean product score

Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.

Next steps from the Sulfite page

Start from Sulfite's 65 catalogued appearances and the attached source fields, then open the product rows that match your use case.

  • Check the listed products containing Sulfite before treating the aggregate count as a personal conclusion. Browse linked labels
  • Compare Sulfite with a peer such as “Ancho Chili Powder” on source-backed rating, FDA status, and product footprint. Compare a peer
  • 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Sulfite 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 Sulfite. Compare like-for-like products before treating the average screening score as an ingredient verdict.

Which product shelves show up most often with Sulfite?

Sulfite 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 Sulfite so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Sulfite appears in 65 products (#4,179 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Sulfite). 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.