Macaroni & cheese pouch pack
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0013800298430 · Meals. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Macaroni & cheese pouch pack scores 95/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 38 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 1 ingredient is flagged for caution. The source parser split this into a very long 38-component record, beginning with Blanched Macaroni, Water, Semolina. That density can include amounts and label fragments, so verify the physical label before relying on ingredient order or completeness. This is not a recall, allergy, medical, or dietary-safety determination.
- 95/100
- Safe safety score
- 1
- One flagged · of 38 analyzed
- Group 4
- Ultra-processed
- C
- 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.
Composite profile score
One verdict from three independent sources
65/100
Grade B-
Ingredient Safety
95/100
FDA/CSPI flagged-ingredient screening
Processing Level
NOVA 4
Ultra-processed foods
Nutrition Grade
C
Nutri-Score front-of-pack nutrition grade
Weighted 50% ingredient safety / 25% processing level / 25% nutrition grade. A dimension with no data for this product (common: source coverage is partial) is dropped and its weight redistributes across the remaining dimensions, so missing data never silently lowers the score. See the full benchmark table.
00298430 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Macaroni & cheese pouch pack label screening desk
7 of 38 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Carrageenan). Source sheet 00298430 · Open Food Facts · July 2026. The screening score and flag counts are in the verdict band above. This desk is the provenance stamp, not a second scorecard. Methodology
Screening model notes
How Nutri-Score, NOVA, and list length read this record
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 settled on its middle grade here, the band the algorithm produces when the penalty and credit sides of its nutrient ledger come out close to balanced. A mid-scale grade is a statement about the panel as a whole rather than about any single nutrient, and products arrive at it by very different routes: a moderate profile across every term, or high marks on some offset by heavy penalties on others. The grade is computed separately from the ingredient screen below and the two are not comparable measures.
The declared list is among the longer ones in this catalogue. A component set this wide means the screen returns many individual ratings, and the composite accumulates a large number of small contributions instead of turning on a handful of entries. At this length the per-component table below is substantially more informative than the single figure, because the figure compresses a great deal of variation into one number.
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 15,626 products we've scored in the Meals category, the average safety score is 93.6/100. Macaroni & cheese pouch pack scores 1.4 points above that category average (95/100 vs. 93.6/100), 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 Meals products
Macaroni & cheese pouch pack lists 38 ingredients on its label
38 68th percentile a longer ingredient list than 68% of the 11,283 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
- 12 products (0%)
- 2–4
- 83 products (1%)
- 4–6
- 127 products (1%)
- 6–8
- 209 products (2%)
- 8–10
- 312 products (3%)
- 10–12
- 315 products (3%)
- 12–14
- 412 products (4%)
- 14–16
- 477 products (4%)
- 16–18
- 542 products (5%)
- 18–20
- 552 products (5%)
- 20–22
- 545 products (5%)
- 22–24
- 550 products (5%)
- 24–26
- 552 products (5%)
- 26–28
- 552 products (5%)
- 28–30
- 574 products (5%)
- 30–32
- 517 products (5%)
- 32–34
- 466 products (4%)
- 34–36
- 451 products (4%)
- 36–38
- 443 products (4%)
- 38–40
- 388 products (3%)
- 40 and above
- 3,204 products (28%)
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 11,283 Meals 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
How the 95/100 score is built
Screening starts at 100 and subtracts severity-weighted FDA SAFFA / CSPI flags (1 flagged of 38 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Blanched macaroni (water, semolina, egg whites), skim milk, water, american cheese spread (cheddar and colby cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes], water, whey, sodium phosphate, whey protein concentrate, skim milk, milkfat, salt, carrageenan, cellulose gum), cheese sauce (cheddar cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes], water, milkfat, whey, enzyme modified cheese [pasteurized milk, water, sodium phosphate, milkfat, salt, cheese culture, enzymes], sodium phosphate, modified food starch, salt, lactic acid, sodium alginate, sorbic acid as a preservative), soybean oil, 2% or less of bleached wheat flour, modified cornstarch, cheddar cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, annatto color), cheddar club cheese (cheddar cheese [cultured milk, salt, enzymes], water, salt, annatto color), salt, whey protein concentrate, potassium chloride, whey, mono - & diglycerides, cheese flavor (cheddar cheese [cultured milk, salt, enzymes], water, salt, disodium phosphate, natural flavors), cheddar cheese (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), annatto color, natural flavor.
Categories
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Carrageenan is the first flagged ingredient selected from Macaroni & cheese pouch pack's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 38-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Carrageenan. Open Carrageenan
- Compare Macaroni & cheese pouch pack's 1 flagged ingredients with a product from the same score neighbourhood. Compare labels
- Check how caution flags contribute to the derived screening score before drawing a dietary conclusion. Read the method
This page describes published ingredient-list and source coverage. It is not dietary or medical advice.
Barcode 0013800298430: product data from Open Food Facts (July 2026). Screening from FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine where attached. Figures are computed from those sources, not editor-typed. Methodology. Reference only, not dietary or medical advice.