Living study · updates daily · free to cite (CC-BY-4.0)

59.7% of scanned US grocery products contain ingredients banned or restricted overseas

Name: The BannedPantry Grocery Study (2026)
Creator: BannedPantry
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The BannedPantry Grocery Study (2026) · 801 products analyzed · updated 2026-07-23

Key findings

59.7% of the 801 scored products contain at least one ingredient banned, restricted, or warning-labeled in the EU, UK, Canada, Japan, or California — 257 rated AVOID and 221 rated CAUTION.
The most common flagged ingredient is High Fructose Corn Syrup, found in 1.9% of all scored products (EU (tax/restricted)).
Worst category scanned so far: candy — 90.9% of scanned products in that category were flagged.
Every flag is tied to a primary source (EFSA, FDA, Health Canada, Japan MHLW, or California OEHHA) — sources are listed on each ingredient page.

The 10 most common flagged ingredients

#	Ingredient	% of scored products	Status outside the US
1	High Fructose Corn Syrup	1.9% (15 products)	EU (tax/restricted)
2	Yellow 5	1.2% (10 products)	EU (warning label required); UK (warning label required)
3	Yellow 6	1.2% (10 products)	EU (warning label required); UK (warning label required)
4	Acacia Gum	1% (8 products)	—
5	Monosodium Glutamate	1% (8 products)	EU (not permitted in infant/young-child foods)
6	Sodium Benzoate	1% (8 products)	EU; UK
7	Red 40	0.9% (7 products)	EU (warning label required); UK (warning label required)

By category

90.9%

Candy

10 of 11 scanned flagged

70%

Drinks

7 of 10 scanned flagged

66.7%

8 of 12 scanned flagged

63.6%

Soda

7 of 11 scanned flagged

57.1%

Cereal

12 of 21 scanned flagged

38.9%

Chips

7 of 18 scanned flagged

Methodology — read this before citing

The sample is every scored product in the BannedPantry database (801 products) — user scans plus an initially seeded catalog of common US grocery and personal-care items. It is a convenience sample, not a random sample of US store shelves: users often scan products they already suspect, which can skew the flagged share upward versus a true shelf census. Every product is scored by the same pipeline (re-checked daily), and the study re-computes as new scans arrive.

A product is rated AVOID or CAUTION when its ingredient label (from Open Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts, or USDA FoodData Central) contains an additive that is banned, restricted, or warning-labeled by the EU, UK, Canada, Japan, or California. Every flag carries a primary-source citation (EFSA, FDA, Health Canada, MHLW, OEHHA) on its ingredient page. Ratings are never influenced by brands.

Cite or republish this study

All statistics on this page are free to use under CC-BY-4.0 with attribution to BannedPantry.com (link required). Suggested citation: “BannedPantry Grocery Study, 2026— bannedpantry.com/study”. For interviews, custom data cuts, or the underlying dataset, see the press kit or email [email protected].

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BannedPantry — Our scores are never influenced by brands.