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Which ingredients are on the most food labels?

Salt is on 635,873 products in Open Food Facts, 49% of those with an ingredient list. The 20 most-listed ingredients, with allergen and vegan answers.

By Bravoora teamPublished 23 October 2026Updated 4 November 2026Sources checked 13 October 20267 min read

Salt is on 49% of the products with an ingredient list, sugar on 41% and water on 35%. Data: Open Food Facts (ODbL), read 13 October 2026.

Key takeaways

Salt, sugar and water top the ingredient lists in Open Food Facts: 49%, 41% and 35% of the products that have one^[1].
Wheat is the allergen on the most lists, 258,709 products (20%), then milk, 186,302 (14%), and egg, 115,834 (9%).
Six of the 20 most-listed names are groups with allergens among their kinds: flavouring, flour, natural flavouring, starch, spice and herb. Read the kind, such as wheat starch^[2].
For a vegan profile, sugar, flavouring, natural flavouring and E322 get Heads up, because their source can vary; milk is Not for you.
The counts overlap: A product with wheat flour counts under flour, wheat and wheat flour.

The short answer

Salt is on the most: 635,873 of the 1,284,867 products in Open Food Facts that have an ingredient list, about half. Sugar follows on 524,712 and water on 449,088. Of the allergens, wheat is on the most, 258,709 products, then milk on 186,302 and egg on 115,834.

Which 20 ingredients are on the most labels?

Salt, sugar and water, then flavouring, vegetable oil and flour^[1]. The table ranks the 20 names Open Food Facts counts on the most products, with the answer Bravoora’s pages give each one for an allergy and for a vegan profile^[2]^[3].

The 20 ingredients on the most products in Open Food Facts, of 1,284,867 with an ingredient list (read 13 October 2026), with Bravoora’s allergen and vegan answers
Rank	Ingredient	Products	Share	Allergen	Vegan profile
1	Salt	635,873	49%	None listed	Fits you
2	Sugar	524,712	41%	None listed	Heads up
3	Water	449,088	35%	None listed	Fits you
4	Flavouring	436,041	34%	Depends on the kind: bitter almond extract (tree nuts)	Heads up
5	Vegetable oil	295,045	23%	None listed	Fits you
6	Flour	283,736	22%	Depends on the kind: wheat flour (gluten)	Fits you
7	Natural flavouring	277,614	22%	Depends on the kind: bitter almond extract (tree nuts)	Heads up
8	Wheat	258,709	20%	Gluten	Fits you
9	Starch	254,356	20%	Depends on the kind: wheat starch (gluten)	Fits you
10	Spice	236,341	18%	Depends on the kind: mustard seed (mustard)	Fits you
11	E330 (citric acid)	218,830	17%	None listed	Fits you
12	Glucose	213,918	17%	None listed	Fits you
13	Wheat flour	211,706	16%	Gluten	Fits you
14	Milk	186,302	14%	Milk	Not for you
15	E322 (lecithins)	156,330	12%	Can be soy or egg	Heads up
16	Onion	151,457	12%	None listed	Fits you
17	Garlic	145,302	11%	None listed	Fits you
18	Cocoa	136,410	11%	None listed	Fits you
19	Herb	129,083	10%	Depends on the kind: celery leaves (celery)	Fits you
20	Sunflower oil	128,311	10%	None listed	Fits you

Which allergens are on the most ingredient lists?

Wheat, named on 258,709 products, then milk on 186,302 and egg on 115,834^[1]. Wheat is counted with every kind of it, so the 211,706 products that list wheat flour are inside its count. Egg is 24th of the names ranked here. Of the other allergens, soy is named as soya lecithin on 106,292 products, and the tree nuts are on 84,197^[1].

Each has a guide that lists the names it hides behind: gluten, milk, eggs, lecithin and tree nuts.

Which of the most common names can hide an allergen?

The group names. Bravoora’s dictionary files some kinds of each under an allergen: bitter almond extract (tree nuts) under flavouring, wheat flour (gluten) under flour, bitter almond extract (tree nuts) under natural flavouring, wheat starch (gluten) under starch, mustard seed (mustard) under spice and celery leaves (celery) under herb^[2].

On an EU or UK label the allergen must still be named, so the word to look for is the kind: wheat starch, not starch alone^[4]. On a US pack the allergen can be named in a “Contains” line under the list instead, so read that line too^[5].

Which of them are not always vegan?

Sugar, flavouring and natural flavouring: Bravoora’s dictionary gives a vegan profile Heads up for all three, because some kinds are made with an animal product and a label rarely says which^[2]. The E-number list gives E322 Heads up too: The pack does not have to say its source^[3].

Milk is Not for you on a vegan profile. The article on ingredients that are not always vegan goes through the rest^[6].

What else do the counts show?

Of the 4,535,553 products in the export, 1,284,867 have an ingredient list; every share in this article is of those^[1].
Salt is listed most often in biscuits and cakes, then dressings and sauces; sugar in biscuits and cakes, then sweets^[1].
Below the top 20, the next names are yeast (127,801), rapeseed oil (123,747) and corn starch (117,599)^[1].

Method: product counts from the Open Food Facts export of 4,535,553 products, 1,284,867 of them with an ingredient list, read on 13 October 2026^[1]; names, kinds and answers from Bravoora’s dictionary^[2], its guides and its E-number list^[3]. A product counts under a name when its list names it or a more specific kind of it, in any language, so the counts overlap. Names Open Food Facts uses only as a heading or a class (dairy, vegetable, colour, emulsifier) are left out, and so is “flavouring”, which has no food page on Bravoora yet. Contains information from Open Food Facts, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL)^[7].

Which common words on a label stand for a group?

Flour: Bravoora’s dictionary lists 90 kinds, from wheat flour to rice flour.
Starch: 22 kinds, from corn starch to wheat starch.
Vegetable oil: 39 kinds, from sunflower oil to olive oil; the nut and seed oils, such as peanut and sesame oil, name their allergen.
Spice: 56 kinds, from paprika to mustard seed.
Sugar: 40 kinds, from cane sugar to molasses.

How do you read the everyday ingredients in 30 seconds?

Salt and water carry no allergen and fit a vegan profile; sugar carries no allergen but is Heads up for a vegan one.
Stop at a group name such as flour, starch, vegetable oil or spice, and look for the kind beside it.
Read the emphasised words (EU, UK) or the “Contains” line (US) for the allergens.
For a vegan profile, check sugar, flavouring and E-numbers such as E322 by their source.
Paste the list into the label checker to mark each name.

How does Bravoora read the everyday ingredients?

Bravoora reads every ingredient against the profile, the common ones included, and shows the printed word behind each answer. For Hannah, who avoids gluten, wheat starch gives “Not for Hannah”; for Daniel, whose profile is vegan, sugar gives “Heads up for Daniel”; and for Sam, who counts calories, the same scan logs the pack’s energy against the goal Sam set. The methodology shows how it is tested.

Let Bravoora read the label with you.

Tell it once what matters: your allergens, your diet, the ingredients you watch. Every answer then shows the words it is based on.

Build my profile

Scope and limits

This article counts the ingredient lists in Open Food Facts, a database its contributors fill in from real packs: It covers those records, not every product on sale.

Rules covered: the EU and UK rule that an allergen is named in the list. Sources were checked on the dates listed below.

This is general food information, not medical or dietary advice.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common ingredient in packaged food?

Salt, in Open Food Facts: It is on 635,873 of the 1,284,867 products with an ingredient list, 49%. Sugar and water follow.

Which allergen is on the most ingredient lists?

Wheat, on 258,709 products, then milk on 186,302 and egg on 115,834.

Does starch on a label mean wheat?

Not on its own. Starch is a group: Corn, potato and wheat starch are all kinds of it. On an EU or UK label, wheat starch must say wheat, so read the word beside it.