Instant mashed potatoes
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0041268203697 · Plant-based foods and beverages. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Instant mashed potatoes scores 65/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 72 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 72-component record, beginning with Dehydrated Potato With Emulsifier, Mono - And Diglycerides, Preservative. 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 72 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.
68203697 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Instant mashed potatoes label screening desk
19 of 72 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: TBHQ). Source sheet 68203697 · 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 78,450 products we've scored in the Plant-based foods and beverages category, the average safety score is 97.7/100. Instant mashed potatoes scores 32.7 points below that category average (65/100 vs. 97.7/100), 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 Plant-based foods and beverages products
Instant mashed potatoes lists 72 ingredients on its label
72 100th percentile a longer ingredient list than every other product 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
- 3,907 products (6%)
- 2–4
- 7,921 products (12%)
- 4–6
- 8,845 products (14%)
- 6–8
- 7,032 products (11%)
- 8–10
- 6,320 products (10%)
- 10–12
- 4,190 products (7%)
- 12–14
- 3,449 products (5%)
- 14–16
- 3,051 products (5%)
- 16–18
- 2,493 products (4%)
- 18–20
- 2,053 products (3%)
- 20–22
- 1,808 products (3%)
- 22–24
- 1,758 products (3%)
- 24–26
- 1,623 products (3%)
- 26–28
- 1,606 products (3%)
- 28–30
- 1,360 products (2%)
- 30–32
- 1,198 products (2%)
- 32–34
- 1,081 products (2%)
- 34–36
- 901 products (1%)
- 36–38
- 649 products (1%)
- 38–40
- 534 products (1%)
- 40 and above
- 1,655 products (3%)
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 63,434 Plant-based foods and beverages 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 72 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Dehydrated potato with emulsifier (mono - and diglycerides) and preservative (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bisulfite, citric acid), salt, maltodextrin, palm oil, cheddar cheese (milk, cultures, salt, enzymes), sour cream (cultured milk, nonfat milk), contains 2% or less of: natural and artificial flavor, butter (cream, salt), nonfat milk, whey, imitation bacon bits (soy flour, soybean oil with preservative [tbhq], hydrolyzed soy protein, yeast extract, natural smoke flavor, sunflower oil, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, dextrose, inactive dried yeast, caramel color, red 3 and /or red 40, hydrolyzed vegetable shortening [hydrolyzed soy protein, hydrolyzed corn protein, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil [cottonseed, soybean], soy lecithin, natural flavor), modified corn starch, corn syrup solids, sugar, calcium silicate, sweet cream (cream, nonfat milk, sunflower lecithin, silicon dioxide), buttermilk, lactic acid, parmesan cheese (milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), romano cheese (sheep and cow milk, cheese culture, salt enzymes), preservative (citric acid, tocopherols, bht), dehydrated onion, disodium phosphate, blue cheese (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), sodium caseinate, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, reduced-lactose whey, color (beta carotene), dipotassium phosphate, dehydrated chives, emulsifier (monoglycerides), disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, sodium silicoaluminate, sodium phosphate, hydrolyzed soy protein, silicon dioxide.
Categories
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
TBHQ is the first flagged ingredient selected from Instant mashed potatoes's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 72-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to TBHQ. Open TBHQ
- Compare Instant mashed potatoes'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 0041268203697: 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.