Macaroni & cheese
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0021130104000 · Frozen foods. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Macaroni & cheese scores 95/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 35 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 35-component record, beginning with Cheese Sauce, Water, Milk. 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 35 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.
30104000 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Macaroni & cheese label screening desk
10 of 35 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Carrageenan). Source sheet 30104000 · 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.
This label parsed into a long component list. Where many entries are screened at once, the composite tends to reflect the overall mix of registry ratings returned rather than the rating of any one entry. Longer declarations also carry more sub-listed and compound entries, where a parenthetical group is resolved into its parts, so the parsed count can exceed what a reader counts on the packaging.
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 24,982 products we've scored in the Frozen foods category, the average safety score is 92.9/100. Macaroni & cheese scores 2.1 points above that category average (95/100 vs. 92.9/100), 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 Frozen foods products
Macaroni & cheese lists 35 ingredients on its label
35 49th percentile a longer ingredient list than 49% of the 7,008 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
- 11 products (0%)
- 2–4
- 54 products (1%)
- 4–6
- 54 products (1%)
- 6–8
- 66 products (1%)
- 8–10
- 102 products (1%)
- 10–12
- 112 products (2%)
- 12–14
- 184 products (3%)
- 14–16
- 205 products (3%)
- 16–18
- 245 products (3%)
- 18–20
- 284 products (4%)
- 20–22
- 264 products (4%)
- 22–24
- 298 products (4%)
- 24–26
- 247 products (4%)
- 26–28
- 271 products (4%)
- 28–30
- 284 products (4%)
- 30–32
- 294 products (4%)
- 32–34
- 325 products (5%)
- 34–36
- 319 products (5%)
- 36–38
- 314 products (4%)
- 38–40
- 283 products (4%)
- 40 and above
- 2,792 products (40%)
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 7,008 Frozen foods 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 35 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Cheese sauce (water, milk [with vitamin d], cheddar cheese [pasteurized cultured milk, salt, enzymes, annatto color], cheddar cheese flavor [cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), water, sodium phosphates, enzymes], soybean oil, modified corn starch, natural cheese flavor [cheddar cheese, natural flavors, maltodextrin, water, salt, disodium phosphate], salt, sodium phosphates, low sodium sea salt [sea salt, potassium chloride, magnesium salts], mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, annatto extract), cooked enriched elbow macaroni (water, enriched semolina [durum wheat semolina, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid]), water, carrageenan.
Other products containing Cooked Enriched Elbow Macaroni
Cooked Enriched Elbow Macaroni is the least common ingredient on this label, appearing in 4 products across the catalog. See its safety profile.
Categories
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Carrageenan is the first flagged ingredient selected from Macaroni & cheese's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 35-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Carrageenan. Open Carrageenan
- Compare Macaroni & cheese'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 0021130104000: 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.