Shells & cheese bites
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0025155000286 · Frozen foods. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Shells & cheese bites scores 65/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 75 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 3 ingredients are flagged for caution. The source parser split this into a very long 75-component record, beginning with Filling, Cooked Enriched Macaroni Product, Water. 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.
- 65/100
- Concern safety score
- 3
- Few flagged · of 75 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.
Composite profile score
One verdict from three independent sources
40/100
Grade D
Ingredient Safety
65/100
FDA/CSPI flagged-ingredient screening
Processing Level
NOVA 4
Ultra-processed foods
Nutrition Grade
E
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.
55000286 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Shells & cheese bites label screening desk
21 of 75 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Sodium Nitrate). Source sheet 55000286 · 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
This label lands in the third of four positions on the published scale. What separates that position from its neighbours is arithmetic rather than judgement: identical inputs run through the documented weighting always arrive at the same place. Anyone who works the calculation through by hand, using the methodology write-up together with the itemised ratings further down, will reproduce this number exactly — which is the reason for publishing a computed figure instead of an opinion.
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.
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 24,982 products we've scored in the Frozen foods category, the average safety score is 92.9/100. Shells & cheese bites scores 27.9 points below that category average (65/100 vs. 92.9/100), so it is a comparatively weaker pick for shoppers screening within that category specifically, rather than against the product catalog as a whole.
Ingredient-list length vs other Frozen foods products
Shells & cheese bites lists 75 ingredients on its label
75 97th percentile a longer ingredient list than 97% 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 65/100 score is built
Screening starts at 100 and subtracts severity-weighted FDA SAFFA / CSPI flags (3 flagged of 75 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Filling (cooked enriched macaroni product [water, enriched durum wheat semolina (durum wheat semolina, niacin, ferrous sulfate [iron], thiamin mononitrate [vitamin b1], riboflavin [vitamin b2], folic acid)], pasteurized prepared cheese spread [american cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), water, whey, sodium phosphate, whey protein concentrate, milkfat, salt, skim milk, artificial color], cheese sauce [whey, cheddar cheese (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), modified food starch, butter, buttermilk solids, salt, sodium phosphate, contains less than 2% of carrageenan, lactic acid, oleoresin paprika (color), annatto (color), natural flavor, enzyme modified cheese (cheddar cheese [cultured milk, salt, enzymes], disodium phosphate, enzymes, xanthan gum)], applewood smoked bacon - smoke flavoring added [bacon cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrite, smoke flavor], starch blend [wheat flour, methylcellulose, sodium alginate, and sodium tripolyphosphate], cheese powder [cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzyme), disodium phosphate, annatto extract (color)], maltodextrin, bacon fat, bacon bits [(cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosephates, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrate), smoke flavor], salt, smoke flavor, hydrolyzed corn, soy and wheat proteins, disodium inosinate), breading (bleached wheat flour, water, yellow corn flour, wheat flour, dextrose, salt, modified food starch, whey, soybean oil, yeast, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium alginate, soybean flour, milk protein concentrate, paprika extract [color], natural flavor), soybean oil.
Categories
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Sodium Nitrate is the first flagged ingredient selected from Shells & cheese bites's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 75-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Sodium Nitrate. Open Sodium Nitrate
- Compare Shells & cheese bites's 3 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 0025155000286: 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.