Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0021130100873. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce scores 95/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 65 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 65-component record, beginning with Cooked Macaroni Pasta, Water, Macaroni. 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 65 analyzed
- Group 4
- Ultra-processed
- 0021130100873
- Barcode (UPC/EAN)
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
67/100
Grade B-
Ingredient Safety
95/100
FDA/CSPI flagged-ingredient screening
Processing Level
NOVA 4
Ultra-processed foods
Nutrition Grade
N/A
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.
30100873 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce label screening desk
10 of 65 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Carrageenan). Source sheet 30100873 · 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.
No Nutri-Score grade is present for this record in the OpenFoodFacts snapshot this page is built from. The nutritional dimension is absent rather than assessed and withheld: the grade depends on a complete declared nutrition panel, and community-contributed records vary in how much of that panel they carry. Nothing about the missing grade implies anything either way about the panel itself. The screen below covers additive ratings only and does not depend on the nutrition figures.
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.
Ingredient-list length vs every product we publish
Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce lists 65 ingredients on its label
65 99th percentile a longer ingredient list than 99% of the 359,392 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
- 6,050 products (2%)
- 2–4
- 24,522 products (7%)
- 4–6
- 31,054 products (9%)
- 6–8
- 30,981 products (9%)
- 8–10
- 31,618 products (9%)
- 10–12
- 29,943 products (8%)
- 12–14
- 28,403 products (8%)
- 14–16
- 27,417 products (8%)
- 16–18
- 24,508 products (7%)
- 18–20
- 19,062 products (5%)
- 20–22
- 14,679 products (4%)
- 22–24
- 12,238 products (3%)
- 24–26
- 10,830 products (3%)
- 26–28
- 9,344 products (3%)
- 28–30
- 7,955 products (2%)
- 30–32
- 6,753 products (2%)
- 32–34
- 5,918 products (2%)
- 34–36
- 5,282 products (1%)
- 36–38
- 4,531 products (1%)
- 38–40
- 4,063 products (1%)
- 40 and above
- 24,241 products (7%)
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. No category with enough published products was available for this record, so the comparison runs against the whole published catalogue.
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 65 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Cooked macaroni pasta (water, macaroni [semolina {wheat}, durum wheat flour, vitamin b3 {niacin}, iron {ferrous sulfate}, vitamin b1 {thiamine mononitrate}, vitamin b2 {riboflavin}, folic acid], canola oil and extra virgin olive oil), five cheese sauce (water, milk [milk, vitamin d3], heavy cream [pasteurized heavy cream, carrageenan], american white cheese [american cheeses {milk, culture, salt, enzyme}, water, milkfat, sodium citrate, salt, sodium phosphates], cream cheese [pasteurized milk and cream, salt, less than 1 percent of: cheese cultures, carob bean gum, xanthan gum, guar gum], provolone cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], monterey jack cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt & enzymes, powdered corn starch and potato starch], canola oil, butter [pasteurized cream, natural flavors {lactic acid, starter distillate}], sugar, modified corn starch, wheat flour [bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid], parmesan cheese [pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], romano cheese [pasteurized part-skim cow's milk, salt, cheese cultures, enzymes], salt, white pepper, xanthan gum, guar gum, annatto extract [for color]), sharp cheddar cheese (cheddar cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, annatto {vegetable color}], potato starch and powdered cellulose [to prevent caking], natamycin [a mold inhibitor]).
Other products containing American White Cheese
American White Cheese is the least common ingredient on this label, appearing in 6 products across the catalog. See its safety profile.
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Carrageenan is the first flagged ingredient selected from Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 65-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Carrageenan. Open Carrageenan
- Compare Mac & cheese, elbow macaroni, sharp cheddar cheese with five cheese sauce'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 0021130100873: 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.