ToolMatches 825 additive entries and 42 ingredient entries

Japanese Food Label Ingredient Checker

Copy the 原材料名 (ingredient list) from the back of a Japanese food package and paste it below — for example from your phone camera's text recognition. The checker separates ingredients from food additives, gives English names, marks additives that the EU and other stricter regulators treat differently, and translates the allergen line. Each item links to our detailed page in our Ingredients A–Z or food additive database.

Reading the label with your phone camera

iPhone: open the Camera, point it at the 原材料名 box, tap the Live Text button (bottom right), select the text and tap Copy. In Photos, you can also press and hold the text in a picture.
Android: open Google Lens (in the Google app or camera), choose Text, select the 原材料名 box and tap Copy text.
Then come back here and press “Paste from clipboard”. If you copied the whole label, only the 原材料名 part is used.

Ingredient list (原材料名) — paste it in Japanese

What you paste is processed only in this browser and is never sent anywhere.

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How to read a Japanese ingredient list

“／” separates ingredients from additives. Under Japan's Food Labeling Standards, ingredients and food additives must be listed separately. Most labels put a slash (／) between them; some use a line break or a separate 添加物 (additives) field.
Listed by weight. Ingredients and additives are each listed in descending order of weight.
Group names. Some additives may be declared with a single group name however many substances they contain, such as 調味料（アミノ酸等） (seasoning — amino acids etc., which includes MSG), 乳化剤 (emulsifier), 香料 (flavoring) and 酸味料 (acidulant).
Purpose plus substance. Additives used as a sweetener, color, preservative, thickener/stabilizer/gelling agent, antioxidant, color fixative, bleaching agent or fungicide are written as purpose and substance, e.g. 保存料（ソルビン酸K） = preservative (potassium sorbate).
Not everything is listed. Additives carried over from an ingredient without an effect in the final food, and processing aids that do not remain, do not have to be declared.
Allergens. Japan requires labeling of specified allergens — shrimp, crab, walnut, wheat, buckwheat, egg, milk, peanut, and cashew (added in April 2026) — and recommends labeling of about 20 more, including soybean, sesame, pork, beef, chicken and gelatin. They often appear at the end as （一部に〇〇・〇〇を含む）, “contains in part: …”.

Sources: Food Labeling Standards (Cabinet Office Ordinance No. 10 of 2015); Consumer Affairs Agency, allergen labeling.

About the results

Only names in our databases are matched. Anything else is shown as “not in our database”.
If the label has no “／”, items that match our additive database are treated as additives (an estimate).
“Flagged” means the additive is one that the EU or other stricter regulators restrict or evaluate more strictly, or that IARC has classified as possibly carcinogenic — it is not a safety verdict. Additives used in Japan are approved with set limits by the Japanese government.
The “words found on the label” note (pork, beef, gelatin, alcohol) only tells you that such a word appears in the list. It does not tell you whether a product is halal, vegetarian or suitable for any diet; ask the manufacturer if it matters to you.
Most detail pages are in English. The few that are still in Japanese are marked; your browser's translation feature can help there.