Antioxidant Profiles and Co-Occurring Formulation Categories Across Selected Food Products: An Exploratory Label-Based Survey

Antioxidants are used in food products to limit oxidative deterioration, but their prevalence and formulation profiles may vary across product categories. This study characterized label-declared antioxidants and their co-occurrence with other functional formulation categories in 121 commercial products from three retail chains in Warsaw, Poland, comprising 53 meat, 36 cereal, and 32 fruit and vegetable products. Ingredient lists were analyzed using contingency-based association tests, functional-category richness analysis, pairwise co-occurrence analysis, and principal coordinates analysis based on Jaccard distances. Antioxidants were declared in 98.1% of meat, 88.9% of cereal, and 100% of fruit and vegetable products. However, marked category-specific differences were observed in accompanying formulation profiles. Meat products showed the highest functional-category richness and were particularly characterized by preservatives, stabilizers, and flavor enhancers. The most frequently recorded antioxidant substances were sodium ascorbate and sodium erythorbate in meat products, mixed tocopherols in cereal products, and ascorbic acid in fruit and vegetable products. Co-occurrence and multivariate analyses further demonstrated category-related formulation patterns. Overall, the findings indicate that despite the high prevalence of antioxidant declarations across the examined food categories, antioxidant-related profiles and patterns of co-occurrence with other formulation categories differed among product categories.