Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs
by Kroger
Scores 100/100 on FDA SAFFA + CSPI ingredient analysis , with no flagged ingredients identified.
The verdict
Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs by Kroger scores 100/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 18 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 0 ingredients are flagged for caution. The 18-component label is layered, beginning with Pork, Water, Corn Syrup. Start with any flagged rows, then check the nutrition grade and serving size instead of treating one roll-up score as the whole decision. This is not a recall, allergy, medical, or dietary-safety determination.
- 100/100
- Safe safety score
- 0
- flagged ingredients of 18 analyzed
- Group 4
- Ultra-processed
- E
- Nutri-Score nutrition grade
Computed directly from OpenFoodFacts ingredient data cross-referenced with FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings. See our methodology for the scoring formula.
What the Data Says About Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs
Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs by Kroger carries a composite safety score of 100/100, which we classify as "Safe" on our four-tier shelf-label framework.
Of the 18 ingredients parsed from this label, 9 are covered by a regulator or watchdog we screen against (Calcium Stearate, Sodium Lactate, Silicon Dioxide and 6 others), with 7 carrying an FDA Substances Added to Food (SAFFA) status and 7 a CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating. The remaining 9 ingredients appear in neither registry, so they neither raise nor lower the score. Each additive rated caution-or-worse penalizes the composite. Product data originates from the OpenFoodFacts collaborative catalog; safety annotations come from federal regulators and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This score is a transparent derived index we compute from that public data, not an official FDA rating or endorsement; see the Methodology page for the exact weighting.
Our scan did not identify any ingredients in this product that FDA SAFFA or CSPI Chemical Cuisine data flags as requiring caution or avoidance at the time of analysis. That is a meaningful clean-label signal, though it does not account for personal allergens, regional recalls, or inspection findings not reflected in federal additive databases. The per-ingredient breakdown below shows the source-level classification for each component.
On the NOVA processing scale, Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs is classified as Group 4 (Ultra-processed). NOVA measures industrial processing intensity rather than ingredient-level safety, so it complements the SAFFA and CSPI ratings: a product can be clean on additive flags but heavily processed, or lightly processed but carry individually flagged ingredients. Combining both lenses gives a fuller picture than either alone.
How the three scores on this page were derived
Within the four-tier shelf-label framework this site publishes, the composite for this product falls in the highest band. That band is defined by a threshold on the derived score alone: it is where labels land once components carrying caution-or-worse registry ratings contribute little or nothing to the deduction. The band is a summary of what the screened registries return for the components that were parsed, so it inherits their coverage gaps — a component absent from both registries neither raises nor lowers the figure. The threshold and the weighting behind it are set out on the methodology page.
Nutri-Score assigned its lowest band to this label. The algorithm reserves that grade for nutrition panels where the values it penalises sit well above the components it credits. The two systems on this page measure genuinely different things: a product can hold this grade while carrying no additive flagged by the registries screened below, and a product graded well can carry several. Neither reading substitutes for the other, and the per-component table is where the additive picture is set out.
A mid-length component list was parsed from this label. There are enough separate entries for the screen to match several independently, while each matched entry still carries visible weight in the resulting index. Lists of this size are the most common shape in the catalogue, which makes the composite here easier to place against comparable products than at either extreme.
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 100/100 | FDA SAFFA + CSPI composite |
| Flagged ingredients | 0 | CSPI/FDA review |
| NOVA processing group | Group 4 | OpenFoodFacts |
| Nutri-Score | E | OpenFoodFacts |
Composite metric derived from FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine, OpenFoodFacts. See methodology.
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 1,202 products we've scored in the Null category, the average safety score is 95.1/100. Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs scores 4.9 points above that category average (100/100 vs. 95.1/100), so it is roughly typical for shoppers screening within that category specifically, rather than against the product catalog as a whole.
Ingredient-list length vs other Null products
Mild Italian Style Pork Meatballs lists 18 ingredients on its label
18 76th percentile a longer ingredient list than 76% of the 1,052 products we track
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more products. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Distribution as text
- 0–2
- 33 products (3%)
- 2–4
- 56 products (5%)
- 4–6
- 51 products (5%)
- 6–8
- 73 products (7%)
- 8–10
- 53 products (5%)
- 10–12
- 113 products (11%)
- 12–14
- 95 products (9%)
- 14–16
- 129 products (12%)
- 16–18
- 192 products (18%)
- 18–20
- 120 products (11%)
- 20–22
- 48 products (5%)
- 22–24
- 12 products (1%)
- 24–26
- 13 products (1%)
- 26–28
- 7 products (1%)
- 28–30
- 10 products (1%)
- 30–32
- 4 products (0%)
- 32–34
- 11 products (1%)
- 34–36
- 5 products (0%)
- 36–38
- 2 products (0%)
- 38–40
- 2 products (0%)
- 40 and above
- 23 products (2%)
Source Open Food Facts, product label ingredient lists · July 2026
Ingredient-list length is a descriptive property of the label, not a safety rating. A longer list is not automatically worse and a shorter one is not automatically better; the count is shown so the label can be placed against a comparable population. The comparison here runs against the 1,052 Null products we publish with a parsed label, not against the whole catalogue, because list length varies far more between categories than within one.
Ingredient Safety Analysis
Full Ingredient List
PORK, WATER, CORN SYRUP, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SODIUM LACTATE, SALT, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, DEXTROSE, SPICES, NATURAL FLAVORS (CONTAINS MALTODEXTRIN), OLEORESIN OF PAPRIKA, OLEORESIN CAPSICUM, SUGAR, CORN OIL (PROCESSING AID), CALCIUM STEARATE (ANTI-CAKING), SILICON DIOXIDE (ANTI-CAKING).
Other products containing Oleoresin Capsicum
Oleoresin Capsicum is the least common ingredient on this label, appearing in 139 products across the catalog. See its safety profile.
Categories
Data Sources
Data as of July 2026. Source: OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine.
Product data from OpenFoodFacts (ODbL). Ingredient safety ratings from FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine. See our methodology for details.
This information is for reference only and does not constitute dietary or medical advice.
Related
Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Product figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of July 2026.
