How Compound Ingredients Are Parsed and Deduplicated

Source: The WISEcode Standard v1.0, Sections 3.1.3, 5.2 and 7.1.

What a compound ingredient is

A compound ingredient is an ingredient made of two or more other ingredients, for example a soy sauce declared as water, soybeans, wheat and salt. The parent name is never scored. Only the sub-ingredients are evaluated.

How the parsing works

1. Declarations such as "seasoning (salt, sugar, spices)" are split into their component parts before scoring begins.
2. Where sub-ingredient data is available, the compound is expanded and each component is assigned its own Processing Level.
3. Where the breakdown is not available, the compound is assigned the highest relevant Processing Level present in the group. This is deliberately conservative.

Deduplication

After parsing, each unique substance is counted once no matter how many times it appears across the label or inside different compounds. Variant names for the same substance, such as coconut oil and organic coconut oil, are resolved to a single canonical name and counted as one occurrence.

Why this matters to your score

The score is a weighted count of unique processed ingredients, so parsing and deduplication directly determine the total. A product that lists the same emulsifier inside three different compounds is not penalised three times. Conversely, an undeclared blend can inherit a higher level than any single component would have received on its own.

What you can do

Supplying full sub-ingredient breakdowns for every compound is the single most effective way to avoid a conservative assignment. Undisclosed blends are treated as Level 3 under the Standard.