Hershey's, chocolate cake
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0078742112619 · Snacks. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Hershey's, chocolate cake scores 90/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 59 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 2 ingredients are flagged for caution. The source parser split this into a very long 59-component record, beginning with Sugar, Hershey's Special Dark Syrup, High-fructose corn syrup. 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.
- 90/100
- Safe safety score
- 2
- Few flagged · of 59 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
53/100
Grade C-
Ingredient Safety
90/100
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.
42112619 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Hershey's, chocolate cake label screening desk
19 of 59 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Polysorbate 80). Source sheet 42112619 · 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 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 88,006 products we've scored in the Snacks category, the average safety score is 86.1/100. Hershey's, chocolate cake scores 3.9 points above that category average (90/100 vs. 86.1/100), 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 Snacks products
Hershey's, chocolate cake lists 59 ingredients on its label
59 98th percentile a longer ingredient list than 98% of the 81,477 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
- 275 products (0%)
- 2–4
- 2,901 products (4%)
- 4–6
- 4,248 products (5%)
- 6–8
- 5,408 products (7%)
- 8–10
- 5,486 products (7%)
- 10–12
- 5,840 products (7%)
- 12–14
- 6,252 products (8%)
- 14–16
- 6,724 products (8%)
- 16–18
- 6,221 products (8%)
- 18–20
- 5,168 products (6%)
- 20–22
- 4,508 products (6%)
- 22–24
- 3,809 products (5%)
- 24–26
- 3,567 products (4%)
- 26–28
- 2,829 products (3%)
- 28–30
- 2,282 products (3%)
- 30–32
- 1,905 products (2%)
- 32–34
- 1,715 products (2%)
- 34–36
- 1,572 products (2%)
- 36–38
- 1,417 products (2%)
- 38–40
- 1,284 products (2%)
- 40 and above
- 8,066 products (10%)
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 81,477 Snacks 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 90/100 score is built
Screening starts at 100 and subtracts severity-weighted FDA SAFFA / CSPI flags (2 flagged of 59 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Sugar, hershey's special dark syrup (high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, cocoa processed with alkali, sugar, salt, mono - and diglycerides, xanthan gum, polysorbate 60, artificial flavor), enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), eggs, margarine (palm oil, water, soybean oil, salt, mono - and diglycerides, artificial flavor, annatto extract [for color], preservative [calcium disodium edta], vitamin a palmitate), cultured buttermilk (cultured milk, nonfat milk, modified cornstarch, sodium citrate, locust bean gum, carrageenan, mono - and diglycerides, salt, vitamin a palmitate, vitamin d3), vegetable shortening (palm oil, mono - and diglycerides, polysorbate 60), invert sugar, semisweet chocolate chunks (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, natural flavor, salt), cocoa processed with alkali, contains less than 2% of the following: cream (cream, milk, nonfat milk, carrageenan, cellulose gum, monoglycerides, polysorbate 80, salt, guar gum), palm and palm kernel oils, modified cornstarch, natural and artificial flavor, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), nonfat milk, milk, soy lecithin, salt, corn syrup, natural flavor, soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives (potassium sorbate, propylene glycol), citric acid.
Categories
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Polysorbate 80 is the first flagged ingredient selected from Hershey's, chocolate cake's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 59-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Polysorbate 80. Open Polysorbate 80
- Compare Hershey's, chocolate cake's 2 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 0078742112619: 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.