Is Santa Maria Sweet Chili Sauce Original ultra-processed?

500 ml Sweet chili sauces Sold in Sweden, France and Spain

Yes, it's ultra-processed

1 Unprocessed
2 Kitchen staple
3 Processed
4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

Thickener
Modified starch
E415 Xanthan gum

11 ingredients
2 additives
Nutri-Score E

Less processed sweet chili sauces

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

Socker (processing marker), vatten, röd chilipeppar 12.5%, vitlök 6.5%, ättika, salt (processing marker), modifierad majsstärkelse (ultra-processing marker), förtjockningsmedel (ultra-processing marker) (e415 (ultra-processing marker)), syra (citronsyra)

Additives: E330 Citric acid , E415 Xanthan gum

As written on the pack

Socker, vatten, röd chilipeppar (12,5%), vitlök (6,5%), ättika, salt, modifierad majsstärkelse, förtjockningsmedel (E415), syra (citronsyra),

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.

E415 Xanthan gum Xanthan gum is a thickener made by fermenting sugar with the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris.
Thickener Thickeners, often gums or modified starches, make liquids more viscous so that a product feels richer than its ingredients alone would make it.
Modified starch Modified starch is starch altered physically, with enzymes or chemically, so that it thickens, gels or survives freezing and heating better than ordinary 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.

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.

How the NOVA groups work

Among 15 sweet chili sauces

From least to most processed, this one ranks 11th. 87% of the sweet chili sauces 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 15 sweet chili sauces, least processed first

About this information

Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 7311310034603, last edited 17 July 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.