Is Sharwood's Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce ultra-processed?

1pcs Poultry meals Sold in the United Kingdom and Germany

Yes, it's ultra-processed

1 Unprocessed
2 Kitchen staple
3 Processed
4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

Colour
Modified starch
E160c Paprika extract

19 ingredients
2 additives
Nutri-Score C

Less processed poultry meals

Classic Chicken New Covent Garden Soup Co 20 ingredients · no additives NOVA group 3
Classic Butter Chicken The Spice Tailor 12 ingredients · no additives NOVA group 3
Chicken Tikka Masala & Pilau Rice Charlie Bigham's 52 ingredients · 1 additive NOVA group 3
Japanese Style Chicken Curry with rice Myprotein 23 ingredients · no 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

Water, Tomatoes 19%, Cream, Onion 6%, Tomato Purée 4%, Modified Maize Starch (ultra-processing marker), Sugar (processing marker), Salted Butter (processing marker) 2%, Rapeseed Oil, Spices, Ginger, Salt (processing marker), Garlic Purée, Acid (Citric Acid), Fenugreek Leaf, Coriander, Colour (ultra-processing marker) (Paprika Extract (ultra-processing marker))

Additives: E160c Paprika extract , E330 Citric acid

As written on the pack

Water, Tomatoes (19%), Cream (Milk), Onion (6%), Tomato Purée (4%), Modified Maize Starch, Sugar, Salted Butter (2%) (Milk), Rapeseed Oil, Spices, Ginger Purée, Salt, Garlic Purée, Acid (Citric Acid), Ground Fenugreek Leaf, Coriander, Colour (Paprika Extract).

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.

E160c Paprika extract Paprika extract is a red-orange colour extracted from paprika peppers.
Colour Colours are added to restore colour lost in processing or to make a product look more appealing.
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.

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.

Meals Products in the category "Meals" are at least group 3.
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.

How the NOVA groups work

Among 233 poultry meals

From least to most processed, this one ranks 161st. 78% of the poultry meals 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 233 poultry meals, least processed first

About this information

Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 5000354913693, last edited 5 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 C (from A, best, to E).
General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.