acetate esters

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 11 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: vinegar-like.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: fruity, sweet, ethereal
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 36000 ppb 1 published value · see all 21 with sources
CAS number: 64-19-7

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

fruit FlavorDB 2.0

fruity FlavorDB 2.0

fruity, sweet, ethereal shown above Llm Adjudicated

—

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

21 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

36000 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
36000 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

22000 ppb – 180000 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
22000 ppb SIDA	water (food: japanese soy sauce)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
22000 ppb SIDA	water (food: maillard model (glucose + proline))	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
22000 ppb SIDA	water (food: maillard products)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
22000 ppb SIDA	water (food: maillard model)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
99000 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
180000 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
180000 ppb SIDA	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65

Retronasal / in-mouth

378 ppb – 22000 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
378 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
22000 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—
22000 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

6.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

Other matrix

124 ppb – 135 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
124 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
124 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: gouda cheese)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
124 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
124 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
135 ppb SIDA	oil (oil) (food: hungarian-type salami)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
31140 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
Flagged: 231× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
41000 ppb SIDA	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
Flagged: 304× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
75521 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
Flagged: 559× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
76000 ppb SIDA	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	30779560, 32625638, 18570373 +65
Flagged: 563× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Thresholds in published tables

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range of the values; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Medium	Median	Range	Values	Papers	Papers agree?
air	210 µg/L air	0.013–5.5e+05	23	19	no (7.2 decades)
ethanol solution	1.6e+05 ppb	2.4e+04–3.36e+05	14	12	yes
food matrix	5e+04 ppb	0.013–2e+08	61	56	no (3.3 decades)
model wine or beer	2e+05 ppb	2e+05–2e+05	1	1	one paper
oil	350 ppb	114–1.14e+05	10	9	yes
starch or other	3.114e+04 ppb	3.11e+04–3.11e+04	3	3	yes
unstated	3e+04 ppb	0.0011–5e+06	128	110	no (4.2 decades)
water	2.2e+04 ppb	0.022–6e+05	50	49	no (3.6 decades)

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain acetate esters. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of acetate esters in it.

98 cmpds

115 cmpds

211 cmpds

288 cmpds