Top 10 Substances by FDA GRAS Notice Volume
PlainIngredients ranks substances by the number of FDA Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) notice filings recorded against each substance name.
Research period:
Research question
Among 1,290 FDA GRAS notice filings in the PlainIngredients dataset, which substances accumulate the highest count of GRAS notice records, and how does the FDA response distribution skew across those top filings?
Methodology
The ranking above counts, for each substance, how many separate GRAS notices the FDA has on file, how many closed with "no questions" (the agency's standard sign-off), and how many were withdrawn or ceased before a determination. Every number is computed live from PlainIngredients' own copy of the FDA GRAS Notice Inventory each time the page loads, not hardcoded, and it updates automatically the next time that dataset is re-imported.
A single substance can appear under slightly different spellings or capitalizations across separate GRN filings (the FDA's raw export is not fully standardized); this ranking merges those variants so the notice counts reflect one true total per substance rather than splitting it across near-duplicate rows.
The population summary below the ranking table covers every GRAS notice on file, not just the top 10, so readers can judge how concentrated notice-filing activity is at the top of the list versus spread across the full substance population.
Editorial governance: PlainIngredients maintains an editorial standards document that codifies how rankings are constructed, how outliers are surfaced, how privacy-protected records are handled, and how corrections are processed when an entity disputes a value attributed to it. Subject-submitted corrections route through a defined intake process and are reconciled against the upstream record before publication; cosmetic corrections are recorded as overlay metadata while substantive corrections wait for the next official source release. A named editor reviews every ranking page before publication and signs off using the byline displayed at the top of this page. Corrections, takedowns, and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels documented in the portal footer.
Transparency commitments: PlainIngredients publishes its full methodology, source registry, data-update status, and update history through dedicated pages reachable from the footer navigation. Visitors can trace any number on this page back to the underlying source row by following the entity link, inspecting the source URL referenced in the citation block, and comparing against the most recent vintage published by U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Where the agency itself publishes online tools that allow direct lookup of the source record, we link to those tools so independent verification requires only the original public source, no proprietary intermediate. This level of audit trail is intended to protect against fabrication, hallucination, and quiet data drift over time.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 Substances by FDA GRAS Notice Volume
Live data, updated automatically as the source dataset is revised
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current dataset of 10 qualifying records. Figures update automatically as the source data is refreshed.
| # | Substance | GRAS notices | No questions response | Ceased to evaluate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2'-Fucosyllactose | 20 | 13 | 4 |
| 2 | Galacto-oligosaccharides | 13 | 11 | 2 |
| 3 | D-psicose | 11 | 8 | 3 |
| 4 | Enzyme-modified steviol glycosides | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| 5 | Rebaudioside A purified from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni (rebaudioside A) | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| 6 | Rebaudioside A purified from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) Bertoni | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| 7 | Lacto-N-tetraose | 7 | 4 | 1 |
| 8 | Lacto-N-neotetraose | 7 | 6 | 0 |
| 9 | Carbon monoxide | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 10 | 6'-Sialyllactose sodium salt | 7 | 6 | 1 |
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA GRAS Notice Inventory. Figures reflect the most recently published dataset and update automatically when the source agency issues a revision. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA GRAS Notice Inventory. Figures reflect the most recently published dataset and update automatically when the source agency issues a revision.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The substance with the most GRAS notices on file is 2'-Fucosyllactose, with 20 separate filings. The full top-10 list is shown in the table above; every figure is computed live from the current dataset, not hardcoded, and updates automatically whenever U.S. Food and Drug Administration publishes a new release.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (20) and the 10th-ranked record (7) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Food and Drug Administration, specifically the FDA GRAS Notice Inventory. PlainIngredients ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
GRAS notices are voluntary submissions to the FDA in which a sponsor presents evidence that a substance is Generally Recognized As Safe for its intended use. The FDA's most common response is a no-questions letter, which conveys non-objection rather than affirmative approval; a ceased-to-evaluate outcome reflects sponsor withdrawal or other process exits, not an adverse safety finding. Notice volume is influenced by industry filing patterns: a substance with many intended-use variations can accumulate multiple notices from different sponsors, while a long-established substance may have few or no notices because it predates the GRAS notification program (1997). The closure-year chart captures FDA closure dates, which lag submission dates by a documented inventory cycle. Substance-name normalization in the PlainIngredients dataset may merge or split entries differently from how the FDA indexes them. This page reports figures as recorded in the public FDA GRAS Notice Inventory; it is not a substitute for direct review of an individual notice for product-formulation decisions.
Secondary cut from the same source
GRAS notices grouped by FDA closure year (2010-2025 window)
Sources
- FDA, GRAS Notice Inventory - https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=GRASNotices
- FDA, Generally Recognized as Safe Program Overview - https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredients-packaging/generally-recognized-safe-gras
- Federal Register, GRAS Final Rule (2016) - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/08/17/2016-19164/substances-generally-recognized-as-safe