To investigate 7food preservative residuals of pickled vegetables in bulk at retail market of Yantai, and provide scientific basis for customer making decisions for such product. MethodsThe residue content of 7food preservatives including sorbic acid, benzoic acid, dehydroacetic acid were detected by ultra performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detector (UPLC-PDA). The quality of pickled vegetable was judged by GB 2760-2011. ResultsThe detection rate of benzoic acid was 99.7% (299/300), higher than that of sorbic acid which was 68.7% (206/300), while the detection rate of dehydroacetic acid was only 25.0%. There were 188samples exceeded the benzoic acid limit of GB 2760-2011, the maximum value was 5.31g/kg which was 4.3times higher than the limit. In addition, the maximum value of sorbic acid was 2.35g/kg, 2.3times higher than the limit. Olio had the highest residual level among 300samples. The parabens were not detected in this investigation. Conclusion The content of benzoic acid was the highest and the violation rate was also the highest. We should strengthen the supervision and monitoring to control food preservative used in pickled vegetables.