NOVA Food Classification: Group 1 to Group 4 Explained with Real Examples
NOVA sorts food into four groups by how much it is processed. What each group means, how to spot ultra-processed food, and real examples from 88,246 products.
The NOVA food classification sorts every food into one of four groups by how much, and why, it has been industrially processed. It does not look at calories, sugar or fat. Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed food, Group 2 is processed culinary ingredients such as oil, butter, sugar and salt, Group 3 is processed food made by combining the first two, and Group 4 is ultra-processed food. NOVA was developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and first proposed in 2009. Below, each group is explained with real products from the Looksee database, and with what the label tells you.
Contents
- What is the NOVA food classification?
- The four NOVA groups at a glance
- Group 1: Unprocessed or minimally processed foods
- Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients
- Group 3: Processed foods
- Group 4: Ultra-processed foods
- Same food, different group: the yogurt test
- What 88,246 products in the Looksee database show
- The limits of NOVA
- How Looksee uses NOVA
- Frequently asked questions
What is the NOVA food classification?
Most nutrition advice talks about nutrients: how much sugar, salt or saturated fat a food contains. NOVA asks a different question. It classifies foods by "the extent and purpose" of the industrial processing behind them, so a food is judged by what was done to it and why, not by its nutrition panel.
The system comes from a research group at the University of São Paulo led by Carlos Monteiro. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report on it in 2019, Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health using the NOVA classification system, which sets out the four groups with definitions and examples. Brazil's national dietary guidelines (Ministry of Health, 2014) were among the first official guidelines to give advice based on processing.
One naming point: you will see "NOVA score" online, but NOVA has no score. A food belongs to one of four groups, numbered 1 to 4. A higher number means more processing, not a better or worse grade on a scale.
The four NOVA groups at a glance
| NOVA group | What it is | Typical examples (FAO) | Real example on Looksee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unprocessed or minimally processed foods | Fresh or frozen vegetables, plain milk and plain yogurt, eggs, oats, dried beans | Bob's Red Mill Old Fashioned Rolled Oats |
| 2 | Processed culinary ingredients | Oils, butter, lard, sugar, honey, salt | Bragg Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil |
| 3 | Processed foods | Canned vegetables and legumes in brine, canned fish, cheeses, freshly made bread | Raley's Chunk Light Tuna in Water |
| 4 | Ultra-processed foods | Soft drinks, packaged snacks, mass-produced packaged bread, breakfast cereals, "fruit" yogurts | Chobani Less Sugar Ripe Strawberry Yogurt |
Group 1: Unprocessed or minimally processed foods
Group 1 covers foods as they come from plants and animals, plus foods altered only by processes that keep them close to that state. The FAO lists processes such as removing inedible parts, drying, grinding, roasting, boiling, pasteurizing, chilling, freezing, vacuum packing and non-alcoholic fermentation. What these processes do not do is add salt, sugar, oils or fats.
Typical Group 1 foods include fresh, frozen or dried fruit and vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts without added salt or sugar, fresh meat and fish, eggs, plain milk and plain yogurt, and flours. Foods made only from several Group 1 items, such as unsweetened granola from cereals, nuts and dried fruit, also stay in Group 1.
Examples in the Looksee database:
- Bob's Red Mill Old Fashioned Rolled Oats, Looksee Score 100
- Chobani Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt, Looksee Score 100. Its ingredient list is nonfat milk and live cultures, nothing else.
Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients
Group 2 is the set of ingredients you cook with rather than eat on their own. They are extracted from Group 1 foods or from nature by pressing, refining, milling or mining: vegetable oils, butter, lard, sugar, molasses, honey, maple syrup, starches and salt.
NOVA treats these as kitchen ingredients. They are processed, but their purpose is to prepare, season and cook Group 1 foods. Examples on Looksee:
- Bragg Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Looksee Score 80
- Kerrygold Pure Irish Unsalted Butter, Looksee Score 48
The butter shows why NOVA alone is not a health verdict. It sits in a low processing group, yet it scores lower because of its nutrition profile. NOVA says nothing about saturated fat.
Group 3: Processed foods
Group 3 foods are made by adding Group 2 ingredients, usually salt, sugar or oil, to Group 1 foods, often with preservation methods such as canning, bottling, curing or smoking. Freshly made, unpackaged breads and cheeses belong here too. The FAO examples include canned or bottled vegetables and legumes in brine, salted or sugared nuts, cured or smoked meat and fish, canned fish, fruit in syrup and cheeses.
These products usually have short ingredient lists that you could reproduce at home. Examples on Looksee:
- Raley's Chunk Light Tuna in Water: light tuna, water, salt. Looksee Score 77.
- Harris Teeter Petite Diced Tomatoes: tomatoes, tomato juice, salt, citric acid, calcium chloride. Looksee Score 77.
- Piggly Wiggly Cheddar Cheese, Looksee Score 77
Group 4: Ultra-processed foods
Group 4 products are, in the FAO's words, "formulations of ingredients, mostly of exclusive industrial use, made by a series of industrial processes". They are typically ready to eat or ready to heat, and are designed to be convenient, long lasting and very palatable.
The FAO's examples include carbonated soft drinks, sweet and savory packaged snacks, candy, ice cream, mass-produced packaged breads and buns, margarines, cookies and cakes, breakfast cereals and cereal bars, energy drinks, "fruit" yogurts and milk drinks, instant noodles and soups, nuggets, sausages and other reconstituted meat products, and ready meals.
Browse the Looksee lists of ultra-processed foods that look healthy and the lowest-scoring products to see the range.
How to spot a Group 4 product on the label
A 2019 paper by Monteiro and colleagues in Public Health Nutrition, "Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them", gives a practical test: check the ingredient list for at least one item that belongs to the ultra-processed group. These markers come in two kinds.
- Substances rarely or never used in home cooking. Examples: high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, hydrolyzed proteins, protein isolates, maltodextrin.
- Additives whose job is to make the product look, taste or feel more appealing. Examples: flavors, flavor enhancers, colors, emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, and foaming or glazing agents.
Additives that only preserve a food, such as some antioxidants, can also appear in Groups 1 to 3, so not every additive means Group 4. You can look up individual additives in the Looksee additives guide.
Same food, different group: the yogurt test
Yogurt is the clearest way to see NOVA at work, because the three products below look almost the same on a shelf.
| Product | Ingredients (from the label) | NOVA group | Looksee Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chobani Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt | Nonfat yogurt (cultured pasteurized nonfat milk), live and active cultures | 1 | 100 |
| Chobani Less Sugar Ripe Strawberry Yogurt | Lowfat yogurt, water, evaporated cane sugar, strawberry puree, natural flavors, fruit pectin, fruit and vegetable juice concentrate (for color), lemon juice concentrate | 4 | 65 |
| Zoi Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt | Cultured pasteurized nonfat milk, maltodextrin, milk protein concentrate, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3, live active cultures | 4 | 65 |
The strawberry yogurt from the same brand moves to Group 4 because of "natural flavors" and juice concentrate added "for color", both additives of the appealing kind. The Zoi yogurt is plain, but it contains maltodextrin and milk protein concentrate, substances you would not use in a home kitchen. Same food category, three different stories, and the ingredient list tells you which one you are holding.
What 88,246 products in the Looksee database show
Looksee scores packaged food and drink sold in the US, using product data from Open Food Facts. As of October 2026, 88,246 food products in the database have a Looksee Score. This is how they split across the NOVA groups:
| NOVA group | Products | Share | Score 80 or higher | Score 60 or higher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1, unprocessed or minimally processed | 9,203 | 10.4% | 86.1% | 99.9% |
| 2, processed culinary ingredients | 1,088 | 1.2% | 22.8% | 64.6% |
| 3, processed foods | 16,801 | 19.0% | 0% | 38.9% |
| 4, ultra-processed foods | 59,103 | 67.0% | 0% | 9.7% |
| No NOVA group on record | 2,051 | 2.3% |
Two things stand out.
Two thirds of the products are ultra-processed. That is a count of products on the shelf, not of what people eat. For diets, the best US figure comes from the CDC: in national survey data from August 2021 to August 2023, ultra-processed foods made up 55.0% of calories for people aged 1 and over, 61.9% for children and teens and 53.0% for adults (NCHS Data Brief No. 536, 2025).
Processing caps the score. Processing is worth up to 35 of the 100 points in a Looksee Score: 35 for Group 1, 23 for Group 2, 12 for Group 3 and 0 for Group 4. So even with a perfect nutrition grade and no additives of concern, a Group 3 product tops out at 77 and a Group 4 product at 65. That is why the tuna, tomatoes and cheese above all score exactly 77, and why no Group 3 or Group 4 product reaches 80.
The limits of NOVA
NOVA is useful, but it is worth knowing what it does not do.
- It ignores nutrients by design. Butter and sugar sit in Group 2, and a sugary cereal and a fortified one can both be Group 4. A processing group is one signal, not a full verdict, which is why Looksee also uses the Nutri-Score and an additive review.
- Automated classification can be wrong. In a large product database, nobody classifies each item by hand. Open Food Facts, where Looksee's data comes from, assigns NOVA groups with software that reads ingredient and category markers, and describes the calculation as experimental. For example, the FAO lists canned legumes in brine as Group 3, yet one can of pinto beans in the database, whose label lists beans, water, salt and two additives (calcium chloride and calcium disodium EDTA), is recorded as Group 4.
- Incomplete labels give incomplete answers. If an ingredient list is missing or partial, a product may get no group at all, as 2.3% of scored products in our database have.
If a group looks wrong for a product you know, check its ingredient list against the four definitions above. The label is the evidence NOVA works from.
How Looksee uses NOVA
Every Looksee Score combines three parts: the Nutri-Score (up to 40 points), the NOVA group (up to 35 points) and additive risk (up to 25 points). The full method, with the points for each grade and group, is on the How we score page.
To browse by processing level, start with the Looksee lists: best-rated foods, clean picks (Group 1 or 2 foods scoring 70 or higher), and ultra-processed foods that look healthy.
Frequently asked questions
What are the 4 NOVA food groups?
Group 1, unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Group 2, processed culinary ingredients. Group 3, processed foods. Group 4, ultra-processed foods.
Is there a NOVA score?
No. NOVA assigns a group from 1 to 4. The group number describes the level and purpose of processing, not a rating out of a scale. Apps such as Looksee use the group as one part of their own score.
Who created the NOVA classification?
Researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, in a group led by Carlos Monteiro. It was first proposed in 2009, and the FAO published a report on it in 2019.
How can I tell if a food is ultra-processed?
Read the ingredient list. If it includes at least one substance rarely used in home cooking (such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oil, protein isolate or maltodextrin) or an additive meant to change taste, color or texture (such as flavors, colors, emulsifiers or sweeteners), the product is likely Group 4.
Is all processed food bad for you?
NOVA does not say that. Freezing, pasteurizing, canning and fermenting are all processing, and frozen vegetables and plain yogurt stay in Group 1. Group 3 foods such as canned fish and cheese are processed but simple. Nutrition still matters at every level, which is why a processing group is best read alongside the nutrition panel.
Is Greek yogurt ultra-processed?
It depends on the ingredients. A plain Greek yogurt made from milk and cultures is Group 1. One with added flavors, colors, maltodextrin or milk protein concentrate is Group 4, as the yogurt comparison above shows.
How much of the American diet is ultra-processed?
According to the CDC, ultra-processed foods made up 55.0% of calories for Americans aged 1 and over in August 2021 to August 2023.
Sources
- Monteiro CA, Cannon G, Lawrence M, Costa Louzada ML, Pereira Machado P. Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health using the NOVA classification system. FAO, Rome, 2019. fao.org/3/ca5644en/ca5644en.pdf
- Monteiro CA et al. "Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them." Public Health Nutrition, 2019. PMC10260459
- National Center for Health Statistics. Ultra-processed Food Consumption in Youth and Adults: United States, August 2021 to August 2023. NCHS Data Brief No. 536, 2025. cdc.gov
- Open Food Facts. NOVA groups for food processing. world.openfoodfacts.org/nova
- Looksee product data, October 2026.