Is it ultra-processed?
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Is Deluxe Dark chocolate and peanut butter bars ultra-processed?

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Pack of Deluxe Dark chocolate and peanut butter bars

Yes, it's ultra-processed

  1. 1 Unprocessed
  2. 2 Kitchen staple
  3. 3 Processed
  4. 4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

  • 17 ingredients
  • 3 additives
  • Nutri-Score D

Ingredients

Ultra-processing Processing signs are highlighted

peanuts, almonds, chocolate coating (sugar, vegetable fats (coconut, palm kernel, palm, sheanut), cocoa processed with alkali, sunflower lecithin, sorbitan tristearate), glucose-fructose syrup, honey, soy crisps, soy protein isolate, tapioca star

Additives: E322 Lecithins , E322i Lecithin , E492 Sorbitan tristearate

As written on the pack

peanuts, almonds, chocolate flavored coating (sugar, vegetable fats [coconut, palm kernel, palm, sheanut], cocoa processed with alkali, sunflower lecithin, sorbitan tristearate), glucose-fructose syrup, honey, soy crisps (soy protein isolate, tapioca star

What makes it ultra-processed

Cosmetic additives

Added to change how the food looks, feels or tastes, not to keep it safe. A hallmark of ultra-processed food.

  • E322 Lecithins Lecithins are fatty substances extracted mostly from soybeans, sunflower seeds or eggs, used as emulsifiers to keep fat and water mixed, for example in chocolate.
  • E492 Sorbitan tristearate Emulsifiers are substances which make it possible to form or maintain a homogenous mixture of two or more immiscible phases such as oil and water in a foodstuff.

Substances rarely used in home kitchens

Refined or extracted in factories, such as syrups made from starch or isolated proteins. The other hallmark of ultra-processed food.

  • Glucose Glucose, usually listed as glucose syrup, is cheap, keeps products moist and stops sugar from crystallising.
  • Fructose Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruit and honey, but as an ingredient it is refined industrially, mostly from corn starch.
3 ingredients that would only make it processed

Kitchen staples like sugar, salt and oil. On their own they make a food processed, not ultra-processed.

  • Honey Honey, used as a sweetener.
  • Sugar Sugar refined from sugar cane or beet.
  • Vegetable fat Vegetable fats are oils that are solid at room temperature, such as palm or coconut fat.

How the NOVA groups work

About this information

  • Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 20916909, last edited 13 January 2025), available under the Open Database License. If something is wrong or the recipe has changed, you can correct it there.
  • Photo: Open Food Facts contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • The NOVA group is an automated estimate from crowdsourced data: a missing or mistyped ingredient can change it.
  • NOVA measures processing, not nutrition. For nutrition, Open Food Facts gives this product a Nutri-Score of D (from A, best, to E).
  • General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.