Presence of Artificial and Processed Food Additives in the U.S.: Evidence from ingredients in food packaging

Christian Rojas and Doruk Cengiz

No 360932, 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: Using optical character recognition (OCR) methods on 3.1 million U.S. food packages (2005–2021), we document the presence of 10 common artificial (e.g. food colorings and sweeteners) and processed industrial additives (e.g. high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and seed oils). Over half of packaged foods contain at least one additive, especially in categories like candy, beverages, and fruit snacks. Additive use is declining in branded products but remains high in private-label items, raising dietary equity concerns.

Keywords: Health; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 1
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/360932/files/7 ... AAEA_2025_Poster.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea25:360932

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.360932

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().