Labelgrade Data Study · Published 2026-06-07

The State of Packaged Food

What grading 356 products A–F reveals about the grocery aisle

We graded 356 branded packaged foods A–F against USDA data: the average product earns a B- (72.5/100), only 4% reach an A-range grade, a third land at C+ or below, and the single dimension most often dragging a grade down isn't sugar or saturated fat — it's sodium.

Labelgrade grades branded packaged foods one at a time, on a transparent 0–100 scale built from USDA nutrition data. This report steps back and reads all 356 of them together. Treated as a single dataset, the grades answer questions a single fact sheet can't: how good is the average product, really? How many are genuinely worth buying? And when a packaged food scores poorly, what is the one thing most likely to blame? Everything below is computed at build time from the live catalog — nothing here is typed in by hand, and nothing can drift from the product pages it summarizes.

How we did this

We scored 356 branded packaged foods on the Labelgrade v3.1 methodology — six weighted dimensions, every nutrition figure verified against USDA FoodData Central. The weights are fixed and public: protein density 23%, ingredient quality 21%, saturated fat 18%, sodium 15%, sugar 15%, fiber 8%. The three "load" dimensions (sugar, sodium, saturated fat) are scored per 100 g, not per labeled serving, so a conveniently small serving size can't disguise a dense nutrient. Each product gets a 0–100 overall score and a letter grade from A+ to F. The catalog skews toward the kinds of foods people actually search for — packaged proteins, snacks, dairy, cereal, canned goods, frozen meals — rather than a random sample of the whole supermarket, and the figures below describe that catalog. See the full methodology.

The grade distribution

Here is every grade in the catalog, best to worst. The average product earns a B- — the mean score is 72.5/100 and the median is 73 (B-), both squarely in the B-minus band. The single most common grade is B- (76 products). The aisle isn't a wasteland — but it isn't full of winners either.

Bucketed into bands, the shape is clear:

The headline number for a shopper: only 4% of packaged foods earn an A-range grade, while 34% — about a third — land at C+ or below. "Average" here is not a compliment; it's a B-minus, and B-minus means a clearly better choice is usually one shelf over.

What fails most

A Labelgrade is a blend of six dimensions, so a low grade always has a primary cause. We found the single weakest sub-score for every product — the dimension doing the most damage — and counted them up. Among the 122 products scoring C+ or below, the most common culprit is sodium (63 products), ahead of sugar. Across the whole catalog, sodium is also the lowest-scoring of the three "load" dimensions, averaging just 63.8/100.

That is the report's most counterintuitive finding, so it's worth stating plainly: in our data, salt — not sugar — is the number-one reason a packaged food loses points. Sugar dominates the conversation about processed food, and it genuinely sinks the sweet categories (juice, cereal, bars). But measured across the entire aisle, sugar scores better on average than sodium does, because most packaged foods aren't candy — whereas an enormous share of them are quietly salty.

Here's how often each dimension itself scores in the D/F range:

One honest caveat on this table: fiber tops it, but that's a measurement artifact, not the real story. Fiber is the lowest-weighted dimension (8%), and whole, honest foods — tuna, eggs, cheese, plain meat — contain no fiber and shouldn't be marked down as if they were failed bread. So "low fiber" is extremely common but rarely the deciding factor in a grade. Strip fiber out and look at what a product actively gets wrong — too much of something — and sodium is the clear leader, with sugar and saturated fat behind it.

Best & worst categories

Averaging the overall score within each category (and ranking only the 32 categories with at least 4 graded products, out of 79 in total) sorts the aisle from best to worst. The split is intuitive: high-protein, minimally-processed staples rise to the top; salt-and-fat-forward categories sink.

Top 5 categories

Bottom 5 categories

The best-scoring category, Protein Powder, averages a B+ (82.9); the worst, Condiments & Sauces, averages a C- (58.8). Note what unites the bottom of the table — Condiments & Sauces, Canned Meat & Entrees, Cheese, Pizza, Protein chips and crunchy snacks: these are the sodium-and-saturated-fat categories, which is exactly what the "what fails most" data predicted. The aisle's worst grades and its worst nutrient habit turn out to be the same story told twice.

The takeaway

Three things are true of the packaged-food aisle once you grade it end to end:

• The average is a B-, and "average" isn't good. Most products cluster in the B-minus-to-C-plus middle. Only 4% are A-range, so the good stuff is real but rare — and roughly a third of the aisle is a C+ or worse, meaning a better option in the same category is usually within arm's reach.
• It's sodium, not sugar, that quietly does the most damage. Sugar is the nutrient everyone watches, and it deserves the scrutiny in the sweet categories. But measured across the whole catalog, sodium is the most common reason a grade falls apart and the lowest-scoring load dimension on the shelf. The nutrient with the worst PR isn't the one with the worst average.
• Category is destiny — mostly. A few categories (protein powder, Greek yogurt, canned fish, nut butters) are good almost by construction; a few (cheese, pizza, canned entrees, condiments) are hard to do well no matter the brand. Knowing the category's baseline tells you most of what you need before you ever pick up a specific box.

None of this says packaged food is the enemy. A B-minus is a perfectly fine occasional choice, and a C is not poison — it just means there's a better-graded option nearby. The point of grading the whole aisle is to make that "nearby better option" findable. When the front of the package and the grade disagree, trust the grade — and check the sodium line.

Methodology & data

This report is generated live from the Labelgrade catalog of 356 branded foods. Each product is scored 0–100 on six weighted dimensions — protein density 23%, ingredient quality 21%, saturated fat 18%, sodium 15%, sugar 15%, fiber 8% — with every nutrition figure verified against USDA FoodData Central, and the load dimensions scored per 100 g so serving-size choices can't mask a dense nutrient. The full method, including how each dimension is scored and how scores map to letters, is at labelgrade.com/methodology. The complete, browsable dataset — every product, every grade, every dimension — is open at labelgrade.com/data.

Labelgrade is editorially independent: grades are computed from nutrition data and ingredient panels and are never influenced by affiliate relationships. See our editorial standards. Found a number you think is wrong? Our corrections policy is public, and every product page shows its USDA source.

Cite this report

These findings are free to cite and reuse with attribution to Labelgrade (labelgrade.com). Journalists, dietitians, and writers covering nutrition, packaged food, or food policy are welcome to use any stat above — please link to this page so readers can check the live data, which updates as the catalog grows.

Source: Labelgrade State of Packaged Food, labelgrade.com, 2026. Data: labelgrade.com/data · Method: labelgrade.com/methodology.

For a specific cut of the data — by category, by dimension, or a custom threshold — reach us via the contact page. This page updates automatically as the catalog grows and grades are revised; all figures reflect the catalog as of the last build (356 products).