What is the NOVA classification?
Short answer
NOVA is a food classification system that sorts food by degree of processing into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed (group 1), processed culinary ingredients (group 2), processed foods (group 3), and ultra-processed foods (group 4). It ignores nutrients entirely and asks only what was done to the food industrially.
The four groups
- Group 1 — unprocessed or minimally processed: fruit, vegetables, eggs, milk, plain meat, dried beans, plain yoghurt
- Group 2 — culinary ingredients: oil, butter, sugar, salt, used to cook group 1 foods
- Group 3 — processed foods: group 1 plus group 2, like bread, cheese, canned fish, salted nuts
- Group 4 — ultra-processed: industrial formulations with ingredients you would not find in a home kitchen — emulsifiers, protein isolates, colours, flavourings, modified starches
Why it is useful alongside a nutrition score
A nutrition score reads the macros; NOVA reads the ingredient list. They disagree often, and the disagreement is informative: a diet soda is nutritionally near-empty but firmly ultra-processed, while full-fat cheese is nutritionally 'bad' on saturated fat but only group 3.
Large cohort studies consistently associate high ultra-processed intake with poorer health outcomes, independent of nutrient profile — which is why Olive Detective uses NOVA group as a scoring input rather than relying on macros alone.
The common criticism
NOVA is criticised for being subjective at the edges: the same product can be classified differently by different assessors, and 'ultra-processed' groups together things as different as a protein bar and a fizzy drink. It is a useful signal, not a precise measurement, and it is weighted as one input among several rather than treated as a verdict.
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Last updated 26 August 2026.
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