NOVA Classification: Understanding the 4 Food Processing Groups
In short
NOVA classifies foods by their degree of processing (4 groups), not by their nutritional value: it's a different tool from the Nutri-Score. France still has no regulatory definition of "ultra-processed" food, as the national food safety agency (ANSES) noted in its January 2025 opinion.
A plain yoghurt and an industrial chocolate bar can carry a comparable Nutri-Score if you only look at the nutrition table figures, even though they have nothing in common in terms of processing. That's exactly the gap the NOVA classification tries to fill: it doesn't measure nutritional quality, it measures the process that produced the food.
This guide breaks down the 4 NOVA groups, the scientific origin of the classification, and what recent research says — including its documented limits.
What the NOVA classification is
NOVA is a food classification system developed by a team of Brazilian researchers led by Carlos Monteiro (University of São Paulo), used since then in France in particular by the NutriNet-Santé team at INSERM in its epidemiological work. Unlike the Nutri-Score, NOVA doesn't rely on nutrient content but on descriptive criteria: the nature of the ingredients, their number, the presence of additives, and the industrial processes used to make the finished product.
The 4 NOVA groups, in detail
- Group 1 — Unprocessed or minimally processed foods: fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, eggs, milk, seeds. May have been dried, ground, pasteurised, chilled or frozen, but without added salt, sugar, oil or other ingredients.
- Group 2 — Processed culinary ingredients: salt, sugar, oils, butter, extracts from group-1 products, obtained by pressing, refining or grinding. They're used to cook and season group-1 foods, not eaten alone.
- Group 3 — Processed foods: group-1 products with group-2 ingredients added, to extend shelf life or change taste — artisan bread, cheese, canned vegetables, tinned fish.
- Group 4 — Ultra-processed foods: industrial formulations combining multiple processing steps and ingredients rarely used in home cooking (protein isolates, modified starches, flavourings, colourants, emulsifiers) — sodas, industrial ready meals, packaged biscuits, reconstituted processed meats.
NOVA isn't the Nutri-Score: two different tools
This is the most common mix-up. The Nutri-Score computes a score from nutritional composition per 100g (sugars, salt, saturated fat, fibre, protein...). NOVA classifies by manufacturing process, without looking at nutrient amounts. In practice, a product can be NOVA group 4 (ultra-processed) while still showing a decent Nutri-Score — a diet soda with sweeteners can score reasonably on sugar content while remaining an industrial formulation classified in group 4. The two pieces of information complement each other; they aren't redundant.
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The most cited reference study is Fiolet et al., published in the BMJ in 2018, based on the French NutriNet-Santé cohort (nearly 105,000 participants): it associated higher ultra-processed food consumption with higher cancer risk, based on observational data (a statistical association, not proof of direct causation). Since then, several international cohorts have reported similar associations with other chronic conditions. In France, ANSES published a dedicated opinion in January 2025 (request no. 2022-SA-0155), examining both the robustness of the NOVA classification and the evidence for a health link. Its conclusion: converging evidence links high ultra-processed food consumption to increased chronic disease risk, but the classification itself remains imperfect.
NOVA's documented limits
The ANSES opinion is explicit on this point: France has no regulatory definition of "ultra-processed food" as of today, and the wording aiming to limit its consumption was removed from the national nutrition-health strategy published at the end of 2025. Several structural limits are documented:
- Sometimes subjective classification: the line between group 3 (processed) and group 4 (ultra-processed) relies on a qualitative judgement of the ingredient list, with no universal numerical threshold.
- No dose granularity: NOVA states that a product belongs to group 4, but doesn't quantify "how much", unlike a continuous score.
- No stabilised legal definition: without regulatory thresholds, two bodies can classify the same product differently depending on how they interpret the criteria.
These limits don't invalidate the tool, but they explain why NOVA remains, today, an epidemiological research tool rather than a mandatory labelling standard.
A practical benchmark, not a ban
In practice, the NOVA classification mostly serves as a common-sense benchmark: favour groups 1 to 3 for most of your diet, without demonising every single group-4 product in isolation — it's the frequency and overall share in your diet that matter, a point the ANSES opinion also makes.
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Do NOVA and the Nutri-Score measure the same thing?
No. The Nutri-Score evaluates nutritional composition per 100g (sugars, salt, fibre...). NOVA classifies by manufacturing process, without looking at nutrient amounts. A product can score well on one and be classified poorly on the other.
Does France have a legal definition of ultra-processed food?
Not as of today. ANSES notes this in its January 2025 opinion: there is no stabilised regulatory definition in France, even though several official recommendations reference the concept.
Is a group-4 food automatically bad for your health?
Not automatically for a single item: it's the frequency and overall share of these foods in the diet that's associated with increased risk in epidemiological studies, not the occasional consumption of a given product.
NOVA and Nutri-Score answer two different questions: one looks at the process, the other at nutritional composition per 100g. Both pieces of information complement each other; neither replaces the other. Radish shows the Nutri-Score computed with the official algorithm when the data allows, with its source indicated like every value on the app. Try it, free, and keep your diary on your phone — never sent to our servers (except AI or barcode scanning, if you use them).
General information, not medical advice.
🔎 Methodology & sources. Every nutrition figure in this article is cross-checked against official sources (ANSES, EFSA, WHO, CIQUAL/USDA, French Public Health agency), and health topics are reviewed before publication against our internal reference framework. See our full methodology →
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