fumaric acid

dairy acid

Found in 2 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C4H4O4
Molecular weight: 116.07 g/mol
PubChem CID: 444972 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: odorless, sour
Odor threshold: 400000.0 ppb
Volatility: high
CAS number: 110-17-8
Retention index: 1362

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2488
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: FUMARIC ACID

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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.

odorless FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

odorless, sour shown above FlavorDB 2.0

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

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?
food matrix	3.86e+04 ppb	3.86e+04–3.86e+04	1	1	one paper
unstated	4.22e+05 ppb	4.22e+05–4.22e+05	1	1	one paper

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain fumaric acid. 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 fumaric acid in it.

19 cmpds

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Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on fumaric acid, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.