Lowes foods, shells & cheese
by Lowes Foods
Open Food Facts label for barcode 0741643020948 · Lowes Foods · Meals. Screening numbers and flags live in the verdict band below. This hero only situates the source record.
The verdict
Lowes foods, shells & cheese by Lowes Foods scores 50/100 in PlainFoodSafe's ingredient screening. We compared its 30 labeled ingredients with FDA SAFFA regulatory records and CSPI Chemical Cuisine ratings; 2 ingredients are flagged for caution. The 30-component label is layered, beginning with Enriched Macaroni, Enriched Wheat And Durum 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.
- 50/100
- Concern safety score
- 2
- Few flagged · of 30 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
33/100
Grade F
Ingredient Safety
50/100
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.
43020948 · Open Food Facts · July 2026
Lowes foods, shells & cheese label screening desk
13 of 30 parsed ingredients carry FDA SAFFA or CSPI coverage (lead: Yellow 6). Source sheet 43020948 · 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 · Read with nearest score peer: Wasabi Sauce · Nearest score peer is Wasabi Sauce at the same screening score.
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.
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.
Cross-brand screening score neighbourhood
How It Compares to Its Category
Among the 15,626 products we've scored in the Meals category, the average safety score is 93.6/100. Lowes foods, shells & cheese scores 43.6 points below that category average (50/100 vs. 93.6/100), 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 Meals products
Lowes foods, shells & cheese lists 30 ingredients on its label
30 52nd percentile a longer ingredient list than 52% of the 11,283 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
- 12 products (0%)
- 2–4
- 83 products (1%)
- 4–6
- 127 products (1%)
- 6–8
- 209 products (2%)
- 8–10
- 312 products (3%)
- 10–12
- 315 products (3%)
- 12–14
- 412 products (4%)
- 14–16
- 477 products (4%)
- 16–18
- 542 products (5%)
- 18–20
- 552 products (5%)
- 20–22
- 545 products (5%)
- 22–24
- 550 products (5%)
- 24–26
- 552 products (5%)
- 26–28
- 552 products (5%)
- 28–30
- 574 products (5%)
- 30–32
- 517 products (5%)
- 32–34
- 466 products (4%)
- 34–36
- 451 products (4%)
- 36–38
- 443 products (4%)
- 38–40
- 388 products (3%)
- 40 and above
- 3,204 products (28%)
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 11,283 Meals 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 50/100 score is built
Screening starts at 100 and subtracts severity-weighted FDA SAFFA / CSPI flags (2 flagged of 30 labeled). The floor is 0 when deductions exceed 100.
Full Ingredient List
Enriched macaroni (enriched wheat and durum flour [wheat flour, durum flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid]), cheese sauce mix: whey, cheddar/monterey/blue cheeses (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), maltodextrin, salt, nonfat milk, natural flavors, whey protein concentrate, cellulose gum, food starch-modified, buttermilk, disodium phosohate, citric acid, cellulose sel, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, yellow 5, yellow 6, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent).
Categories
More from Lowes Foods
Mid-score cross-brand comparables for Lowes foods, shells & cheese
Neighbours outside Lowes Foods near Lowes foods, shells & cheese's mid-band score (50/100). The 5 same-brand links above stay within Lowes Foods; these peers cross brands.
Same mid-band screening score
Nearest cross-brand products by screening score (2 flagged of 30 on 0741643020948).
Long-label peers (21+ ingredients)
Nearest cross-brand labels by linked ingredient count (30 on 0741643020948).
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Follow the flagged-label evidence
Yellow 6 is the first flagged ingredient selected from Lowes foods, shells & cheese's parsed label. Start with that ingredient’s source context, then compare the rest of this 30-ingredient record.
- Inspect the FDA SAFFA and CSPI context attached to Yellow 6. Open Yellow 6
- Compare Lowes foods, shells & cheese'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 0741643020948: 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.