Is Morrisons The Best All Butter Lemon Shortbread Rounds ultra-processed?

180g/9 portions Shortbread Sold in the United Kingdom

Yes, it's ultra-processed

1 Unprocessed
2 Kitchen staple
3 Processed
4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

Glucose
Fructose

19 ingredients
1 additive
Nutri-Score E

Less processed shortbread

Shortbread Fingers Walker’s 9 ingredients · no additives NOVA group 3
All butter shortbread fingers Tesco 10 ingredients · no additives NOVA group 3
All Butter Scottish Shortbread Fingers Marks & Spencer 7 ingredients · 2 additives NOVA group 3
SHORTBREAD all butter fingers Sainsbury's 13 ingredients · 2 additives NOVA group 3

Less processed isn't automatically healthier, so compare the labels for what matters to you, such as sugar or salt.

Ingredients

Ultra-processing Processing signs are highlighted

Wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), Salted butter (processing marker) 33% (butter, salt (processing marker)), Caster sugar (processing marker), Corn starch (processing marker), lemon peel 6% (lemon peel, sugar (processing marker), glucose-fructose syrup (ultra-processing marker), acidity regulator (citric acid)), Lemon oil, Salt (processing marker)

Additives: E330 Citric acid

As written on the pack

Wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), Salted butter (33%) (butter (milk), salt), Caster sugar, Corn starch, Candied lemon peel (6%) (lemon peel, sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, acidity regulator (citric acid)), Lemon oil, Salt.

What makes it ultra-processed

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.

5 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.

Butter Butter, the fat churned from cream.
Salt Salt, added for taste and preservation.
Starch Starch extracted from cereals or potatoes, used to thicken.
Sugar Sugar refined from sugar cane or beet.
Sweet snacks Products in the category "Sweet snacks" are at least group 3.

How the NOVA groups work

Among 64 shortbread

From least to most processed, this one ranks 51st. 33% of the shortbread here are ultra-processed.

Ranked by NOVA group, then by the number of ultra-processing signs, additives and ingredients. Our ordering, not part of NOVA.

All 64 shortbread, least processed first

About this information

Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 5010525263229, last edited 27 March 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.