What foods are ultra-processed?
Short answer
Ultra-processed foods are NOVA group 4: industrial formulations containing ingredients not found in a domestic kitchen. The categories are soft drinks, packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced bread, reconstituted meat products, instant noodles and soups, ready meals, sweetened breakfast cereals, flavoured yoghurts and dairy drinks, and most meat and dairy substitutes.
The categories
- Soft drinks, energy drinks, sweetened and 'diet' fizzy drinks
- Packaged savoury snacks — crisps, extruded corn snacks, flavoured crackers
- Confectionery, chocolate bars, ice cream, mass-produced biscuits and pastries
- Mass-produced packaged bread and buns made with emulsifiers or dough conditioners
- Reconstituted meat — nuggets, fish fingers, hot dogs, most sliced deli meat
- Instant noodles, instant soups, stock cubes and powdered sauces
- Frozen and chilled ready meals
- Sweetened breakfast cereals and cereal bars
- Flavoured yoghurts, dairy drinks and 'health' drinks with added protein isolate
- Most plant-based meat and dairy substitutes
- Infant formula and follow-on formula, which NOVA classifies here despite being necessary for many families
How to recognise one from the label
You do not need the category list if you can read an ingredient panel. A product is ultra-processed when it contains substances that exist to make industrial food work rather than to be food — things you could not buy for a home kitchen.
- Protein isolates and concentrates, hydrolysed protein, soy protein isolate
- Maltodextrin, invert sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, dextrose, modified starch
- Hydrogenated or interesterified oils
- Emulsifiers and stabilisers — mono- and diglycerides (E471), esters (E472), carrageenan, gums
- Artificial or 'natural' flavourings, flavour enhancers, colours
- Non-sugar sweeteners, bulking agents, anti-caking agents, firming agents
- A long list generally, and a list where you recognise fewer than half the entries
The products that surprise people
Ultra-processed is a classification of the formulation, not a judgement about how the product tastes or how it is marketed. Supermarket wholemeal bread is usually group 4 because of the emulsifiers. So are most protein bars, most plant milks with added gums and stabilisers, many 'healthy' breakfast cereals, and a large share of the products sold in health-food aisles.
This is also where the classification draws its most serious criticism, and the criticism has force. Grouping fortified soy milk with a fizzy drink loses information. NOVA measures one thing — industrial formulation — and it does not claim to measure everything.
Why it is worth tracking at all
Large cohort studies consistently associate high ultra-processed intake with poorer health outcomes even after adjusting for nutrient profile, which is what makes processing an interesting signal separate from macros. Cohort studies show association rather than causation, and researchers continue to argue about which mechanism — additives, texture and eating rate, displaced whole foods, or something else — is doing the work.
Olive Detective uses NOVA group as one input into a score rather than as a verdict, for exactly this reason. A group 4 label tells you how a product was built. It does not tell you what it will do to you.
Frequently asked questions
- Is all processed food ultra-processed?
- No. NOVA separates them. Tinned tomatoes, cheese, salted nuts and plain bread are group 3 — processed, made by adding group 2 ingredients like salt or oil to whole foods. Ultra-processed is group 4, which requires industrial ingredients and processes that have no home-kitchen equivalent.
- Is frozen food ultra-processed?
- Freezing is a preservation method, not a formulation. Frozen peas and plain frozen fish are minimally processed, group 1. A frozen lasagne is group 4 — the difference is the ingredient list, not the temperature.
- How much ultra-processed food is too much?
- There is no established threshold, and anyone quoting a precise percentage is going beyond the evidence. The cohort studies compare high intake against low intake across populations; they do not identify a safe line for an individual.
More answers
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Last updated 27 August 2026.
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