Is Waitrose Crisp & lively salt & black pepper mix ultra-processed?

Salty snacks made from potato Sold in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar

Yes, it's ultra-processed

1 Unprocessed
2 Kitchen staple
3 Processed
4 Ultra-processed

Signs of ultra-processing in its ingredients:

Colour
Lactose
E100 Curcumin
E160c Paprika extract

19 ingredients
3 additives
Nutri-Score D

Less processed salty snacks made from potato

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

potato, rapeseed oil, potato starch (processing marker), fortified wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), salt (processing marker), black pepper, yeast extract, lactose (ultra-processing marker), sea salt (processing marker), skimmed milk powder (processing marker), citric acid, colour (ultra-processing marker) (curcumin (ultra-processing marker)), paprika extract (ultra-processing marker)

Additives: E100 Curcumin , E160c Paprika extract , E330 Citric acid

As written on the pack

Dried potato, rapeseed oil, potato starch, fortified wheat flour (wheat flour, calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamin), salt, black pepper, yeast extract, lactose (milk), sea salt, skimmed milk powder, citric acid, colour curcumin, 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.

E100 Curcumin Colours are substances which add or restore colour in a food, and include natural constituents of foods and natural sources which are normally not consumed as foods as such and not normally used as characteristic ingredients of 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.

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.

Lactose Lactose is milk sugar, crystallised industrially from whey, a by-product of cheese making.

4 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.

Salty snacks Products in the category "Salty snacks" are at least group 3.
Salt Salt, added for taste and preservation.
Starch Starch extracted from cereals or potatoes, used to thicken.
Milk powder Milk powder is milk with the water evaporated off: a preserved form of a whole food rather than an industrial extract.

How the NOVA groups work

Among 390 salty snacks made from potato

From least to most processed, this one ranks 268th. 72% of the salty snacks made from potato 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 390 salty snacks made from potato, least processed first

About this information

Data from this product on Open Food Facts (barcode 5000169121979, 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 D (from A, best, to E).
General information, not medical or dietary advice. Check the pack if you have an allergy.