Technically speaking, only a perfect vacuum is "chemical-free", but brands would like to convince you that there is a shared understanding of what "natural" and "chemical-free" means, but there isn't. Caveat emptor.
More specifically, when the packaging says "preservative-free", it just means that it is one of
1. Too sweet (microbes don't like concentrated sugary environments
2. Has very little moisture (life needs water)
3. Is too salty (microbes hate salt)
No packaged food is "preservative-free" out of the goodness of heart. It's preservative-free because it doesn't need any additional preservatives. If companies sold you stuff that went bad quickly, most of us won't go "Oh wow, it was really preservative-free, I love it"
Packaged foods pander to our collective fallacies & the prevailing nutrition theatre zeitgeist. Since we don't like sugars now, they will sneak it in using creative labelling - corn syrup, dextrose fructose, malt syrup, nectar & the sneakiest of them all - fruit concentrate
Also be generally aware that X-free (where X is fat, diary, preservative etc) almost always means that X has been replaced with something that could be as unhealthy but they aren’t obligated to disclose that. For eg fat-free yoghurt has more sugar to make it palatable.
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