Is Malta Goya Malt Beverage ultra-processed?

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Pack of Malta Goya Malt Beverage

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:

  • 10 ingredients
  • 2 additives
  • Nutri-Score E

Ingredients

Ultra-processing Processing signs are highlighted

Water, high fructose corn syrup (ultra-processing marker), corn syrup (ultra-processing marker), pale malt, caramel malt, caramel color, calcium sulfate, phosphoric acid, salt (processing marker), hops

Additives: E150c Ammonia caramel , E338 Phosphoric acid

Also detected, but not matched to one ingredient: E150c Ammonia caramel.

As written on the pack

Water, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, pale malt, caramel malt, caramel color, calcium sulfate, phosphoric acid, salt and hops.

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.

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.
  • High fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch: enzymes break it down to glucose and convert part of that into fructose, giving a syrup about as sweet as table sugar.
  • Fructose Fructose is the sugar found naturally in fruit and honey, but as an ingredient it is refined industrially, mostly from corn starch.
1 ingredient that would only make it processed

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

  • Salt Salt, added for taste and preservation.

How the NOVA groups work

About this information

  • Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 0041331040075, last edited 21 January 2026), 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 E (from A, best, to E).
  • General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.