Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing
by Trader Joe's
Scores 100/100 on FDA SAFFA + CSPI ingredient analysis , with no flagged ingredients identified.
The verdict
Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing by Trader Joe's scores 100/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 27 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 0 ingredients are flagged for caution. The 27-component label is layered, beginning with Sugar, Unbleached Enriched Flour, Wheat Flour. Start with any flagged rows, then check the nutrition grade and serving size instead of treating one roll-up score as the whole decision. This is not a recall, allergy, medical, or dietary-safety determination.
- 100/100
- Safe safety score
- 0
- flagged ingredients of 27 analyzed
- Group 4
- Ultra-processed
- 00570886
- 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.
What the Data Says About Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing
Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing by Trader Joe's carries a composite safety score of 100/100, which we classify as "Safe" on our four-tier shelf-label framework.
Of the 27 ingredients parsed from this label, 12 are covered by a regulator or watchdog we screen against (Orange Peel, Beta-carotene, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate and 9 others), with 10 carrying an FDA Substances Added to Food (SAFFA) status and 4 a CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating. The remaining 15 ingredients appear in neither registry, so they neither raise nor lower the score. Each additive rated caution-or-worse penalizes the composite. Product data originates from the OpenFoodFacts collaborative catalog; safety annotations come from federal regulators and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This score is a transparent derived index we compute from that public data, not an official FDA rating or endorsement; see the Methodology page for the exact weighting.
Our scan did not identify any ingredients in this product that FDA SAFFA or CSPI Chemical Cuisine data flags as requiring caution or avoidance at the time of analysis. That is a meaningful clean-label signal, though it does not account for personal allergens, regional recalls, or inspection findings not reflected in federal additive databases. The per-ingredient breakdown below shows the source-level classification for each component.
On the NOVA processing scale, Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing is classified as Group 4 (Ultra-processed). NOVA measures industrial processing intensity rather than ingredient-level safety, so it complements the SAFFA and CSPI ratings: a product can be clean on additive flags but heavily processed, or lightly processed but carry individually flagged ingredients. Combining both lenses gives a fuller picture than either alone.
How the three scores on this page were derived
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.
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.
Safety Profile at a Glance
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| PlainFoodSafe Score | 100/100 | FDA SAFFA + CSPI composite |
| Flagged ingredients | 0 | CSPI/FDA review |
| NOVA processing group | Group 4 | OpenFoodFacts |
| Nutri-Score | Not available | OpenFoodFacts |
Composite metric derived from FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine, OpenFoodFacts. See methodology.
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 4,660 products we've scored in the Cooking helpers category, the average safety score is 90.9/100. Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing scores 9.1 points above that category average (100/100 vs. 90.9/100), so it is a comparatively strong pick for shoppers screening within that category specifically, rather than against the product catalog as a whole.
Ingredient-list length vs other Cooking helpers products
Meyer Lemon Cake Mix with Lemon Icing lists 27 ingredients on its label
27 82nd percentile a longer ingredient list than 82% of the 1,898 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
- 35 products (2%)
- 2–4
- 96 products (5%)
- 4–6
- 146 products (8%)
- 6–8
- 250 products (13%)
- 8–10
- 179 products (9%)
- 10–12
- 122 products (6%)
- 12–14
- 148 products (8%)
- 14–16
- 124 products (7%)
- 16–18
- 111 products (6%)
- 18–20
- 107 products (6%)
- 20–22
- 84 products (4%)
- 22–24
- 74 products (4%)
- 24–26
- 58 products (3%)
- 26–28
- 47 products (2%)
- 28–30
- 51 products (3%)
- 30–32
- 42 products (2%)
- 32–34
- 30 products (2%)
- 34–36
- 27 products (1%)
- 36–38
- 19 products (1%)
- 38–40
- 13 products (1%)
- 40 and above
- 135 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. The comparison here runs against the 1,898 Cooking helpers 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
Full Ingredient List
SUGAR, UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, ASCORBIC ACID [DOUGH CONDITIONER], NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), CORNSTARCH, NONFAT MILK, LEAVENING (SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, BAKING SODA), SEA SALT, DRIED ORANGE PEEL, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN AND/OR CANOLA OIL), NATURAL FLAVOR, DRIED LEMON PEEL, MEYER LEMON POWDER, CITRIC ACID, BETA-CAROTENE (FOR COLOR)
Categories
Data Sources
Data as of July 2026. Source: OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, CSPI Chemical Cuisine.
Product data from OpenFoodFacts (ODbL). Ingredient safety ratings from FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine. See our methodology for details.
This information is for reference only and does not constitute dietary or medical advice.
Related
Every figure on PlainFoodSafe is rendered directly from OpenFoodFacts and FDA data, no number is typed in by an editor. Product figures are computed directly from OpenFoodFacts, FDA SAFFA, and CSPI Chemical Cuisine data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of July 2026.
