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Plain caramel (E150a)

Plain caramel (E150a) is one of the markers Open Food Facts uses to classify a food as ultra-processed (NOVA group 4).

What it is and why it counts

Plain caramel is a brown colour made by heating sugars.

Cosmetic additives

NOVA calls these additives "cosmetic": they change how a product looks, feels or tastes rather than keeping it safe to eat. Their presence is one of the two defining signs of an ultra-processed food.

Function

Colour
Colours are substances which add or restore colour in a food, and include natural constituents of foods and natural sources which are normally not consumed as foods as such and not normally used as characteristic ingredients of food.

Functional class definitions from the EU food additives regulation, via Open Food Facts.

More about plain caramel (E150a) on Wikidata

Where it turns up

Plain caramel (E150a) appears in 448 of the 40,000 products on this site (1%).

Products containing plain caramel (E150a)

Showing the 60 most popular of 448.

How the NOVA classification works