Is Smucker's Caramel flavored topping ultra-processed?
Yes, it's ultra-processed
- 1 Unprocessed
- 2 Kitchen staple
- 3 Processed
- 4 Ultra-processed
Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:
- Flavouring
- Glucose
- High fructose corn syrup
- Fructose
- Modified starch
- E110 Sunset yellow FCF
- and 4 more
- 19 ingredients
- 7 additives
- Nutri-Score E
Ingredients
Ultra-processing Processing
Corn Syrup (ultra-processing marker), High Fructose Corn Syrup (ultra-processing marker), Nonfat Milk, Contains 2% and Less Of (Modified Corn Starch (ultra-processing marker)), Salt (processing marker), Sugar (processing marker), Natural Flavors (ultra-processing marker), Caramel Color, Sodium Alginate (ultra-processing marker), Sodium Citrate, Sodium Phosphate, Cream (From Milk), Vanillin (Artificial Flavor (ultra-processing marker)), Soy Lecithin (ultra-processing marker), Yellow 6 (ultra-processing marker), Red 40 (ultra-processing marker)
Additives: E110 Sunset yellow FCF , E129 Allura red , E150c Ammonia caramel , E322 Lecithins , E322i Lecithin , E331 Sodium citrates , E401 Sodium alginate
As written on the pack
Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Sugar, Natural Flavors, Caramel Color, Sodium Alginate, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Phosphate, Cream Solids (From Milk), Vanillin (Artificial Flavor), Soy Lecithin, Yellow 6, Red 40.
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.
- E110 Sunset yellow FCF Sunset yellow FCF is a synthetic orange azo dye (FD&C Yellow No. 6 in the US).
- E129 Allura red Allura red AC is a synthetic red azo dye (FD&C Red No. 40 in the US).
- E150c Ammonia caramel Ammonia caramel is a brown colour made by heating sugars with ammonia compounds.
- 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.
- E401 Sodium alginate A food additive used to dissolve, dilute, disperse or otherwise physically modify a food additive or nutrient without altering its function -and without exerting any technological effect itself- in order to facilitate its handling, application or use of the food additive or nutrient.
- Flavouring Flavourings are concentrated aroma preparations that add or intensify a taste.
Show 1 more
- 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.
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.
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.
About this information
- Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 0051500000212, last edited 10 April 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.