"Ultra-processed" has become the most used and least defined phrase in food talk. Behind it sits a specific classification called NOVA, built at the University of São Paulo, which sorts foods into four groups by how much industrial processing they went through. It says nothing about calories, sugar or salt. It only asks what was done to the food and what was added.
Open Food Facts, the open database our product pages are built on, records a NOVA group for many products. In our database 17,494 products carry a valid group from 1 to 4. This post uses those labels to show what each group looks like in practice, and where the system helps and where it does not.
The four groups, with labels
Group 1: unprocessed or minimally processed
Whole foods and foods changed only by cleaning, drying, grinding, pasteurising or freezing. Nothing is added. In our data 725 products sit here, about 4 percent, which reflects the fact that people scan packaged snacks more often than bags of lentils.
Typical labels: Barilla Tortiglioni, whose entire list is durum wheat semolina and water; Quaker Oats Integral, which is oats; Tropicana 100% Orange Pressée, which is orange juice; and Del Monte chopped tomatoes.
Group 2: processed culinary ingredients
Things extracted from group 1 foods to cook with: oils, butter, sugar, salt, honey, maple syrup. Only 84 products in our data, less than half a percent, because few people scan a bottle of oil.
Typical labels: Bertolli olive oil, Kikkoman sesame oil, Turkey Hill maple syrup and Toque Himalayan pink salt.
Group 3: processed foods
Group 1 foods with group 2 ingredients added, using methods you could reproduce in a kitchen: canning, salting, fermenting, baking a simple bread. The ingredient list is short and everything on it is recognisable. 2,153 products, about 12 percent.
Typical labels: Kellogg's Corn Flakes (maize, barley malt extract, sugar, salt, vitamins), Weetabix Original (wholegrain wheat 95%, malted barley extract, sugar, salt, vitamins), Heinz Ketchup, Green Giant sweetcorn in brine, Aldi sardines in spring water and Lindt 70% dark chocolate.
Group 4: ultra-processed
Formulations made mostly from substances derived from foods, plus additives whose job is to make the product look, taste or keep like something it is not. The tell-tale ingredients are ones you would never find in a home kitchen: protein isolates, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, modified starches, glucose-fructose syrup, maltodextrin, and the flavourings, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners and thickeners that hold it together.
This is 14,532 products in our data, 83 percent of everything with a NOVA value. Typical labels: Pepsi Zero, Haribo Tutti Candi, Hellmann's mayonnaise, Heinz Minestrone Soup, Cheerios Multigrain and Pringles Original.
Reading it off the label yourself
You do not need the database to place a product. Three questions get you most of the way.
Does the list contain anything you could not buy as an ingredient? Maltodextrin, dextrose, modified starch, whey protein isolate, hydrogenated fat, glucose-fructose syrup. One of these usually means group 4.
Are there cosmetic additives? Flavourings, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, anti-caking agents, humectants. NOVA treats these as markers of group 4 when their purpose is to imitate or enhance sensory qualities. Preservatives on their own do not push a food into group 4.
Is the list short and made of foods? Flour, water, yeast, salt is group 3 bread. Flour, water, yeast, salt, emulsifiers, flour treatment agent, preservative is group 4 bread. Same loaf shape, different group.
Where the line falls by aisle
Some aisles are almost entirely group 4 in our data, and the pattern is what you would expect:
- Soft drinks: 113 of 114 with a NOVA value.
- Sweets and candy: 1,099 of 1,128.
- Fruit juices and nectars: 119 of 128. Pure juice is group 1, but most juice-aisle products have added sugar, flavouring or vitamins, and NOVA counts that.
- Chocolate: 891 of 1,071. A plain bar of cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar is group 3; add emulsifiers, flavouring and a filling and it moves.
- Processed meat: 668 of 770.
- Cookies and cakes: 406 of 507.
- Crisps and chips: 545 of 837. Plain potato, oil and salt crisps stay in group 3.
- Breakfast cereal: 225 of 391.
- Coffee and tea: 68 of 146. Ground coffee and tea leaves are group 1; instant mixes with creamer and sugar are not.
What NOVA does not tell you
NOVA is a processing scale, not a nutrition scale. That leads to results that surprise people:
- Tropicana pressed orange juice is group 1 and prints 10 g of sugar per 100 ml. Pepsi Zero is group 4 and prints 0 g. NOVA is right about processing in both cases and says nothing about sugar.
- Lindt 70% dark chocolate sits in group 3 while a filled chocolate bar sits in group 4. Both are sweets.
- Weetabix and Corn Flakes are group 3 in our data, while Cheerios Multigrain is group 4, mostly because of the invert sugar syrup and the longer list of derived ingredients. All three are breakfast cereals with sugar on the label.
For that reason we show NOVA as one line on a product page next to the nutrition table and the diet checks, not as a verdict. If sugar or salt is your concern, read the per-100 g figures, which we cover for breakfast cereal and bread in separate posts. If additives are your concern, the E numbers glossary explains each code on its own page.
A note on the data
The NOVA value on a product page comes from Open Food Facts, which assigns it automatically from the ingredient list. When a list is incomplete or in a language the classifier does not handle well, the group can be wrong, and a small number of entries carry no valid group at all. We only display groups 1 to 4, and the counts above exclude everything else.
FAQ
Is group 4 the same as "junk food"?
No. Group 4 includes sliced bread, breakfast cereal, plant milks, flavoured yogurt and many products people eat every day. The group describes how the product was made, not whether it fits a diet.
Can a vegan or gluten-free product be ultra-processed?
Yes, and many are. A vegan burger built from pea protein isolate, methylcellulose and flavouring is a textbook group 4 product. Our diet checks and the NOVA line are independent of each other.
Why do so many products in your database land in group 4?
Because the database is built from products people scanned in shops, and people scan packaged snacks, drinks and ready meals far more often than potatoes. The 83 percent figure describes our data, not the food supply.
Does a preservative make a food group 4?
Not on its own. Salt, sugar, vinegar and traditional preservatives are part of group 3 methods. NOVA reserves group 4 for foods built from derived substances and cosmetic additives.