octanoic acid ethyl ester

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 4 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: fruity, waxy.

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

Properties

Odor description: fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.700 ppb – 147 ppb median 73.8 ppb · 2 published values · see all 6 with sources
CAS number: 106-32-1
Retention index: 1438

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.

Published thresholds

6 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

0.700 ppb – 147 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.700 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
147 ppb SIDA	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	30779560, 18570373, 15826061 +22

In a food matrix

5.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	30779560, 18570373, 15826061 +22

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.100 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.100 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

4.5 ppb – 38.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.5 ppb SIDA	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine)	Literature corpus	30779560, 18570373, 15826061 +22
38.0 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

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	20 µg/L air	5–665	13	11	yes
ethanol solution	13.45 ppb	1.6–580	24	22	yes
food matrix	19.3 ppb	0.1–6e+04	87	80	no (2.7 decades)
model wine or beer	5 ppb	2–1e+03	7	7	no (2.5 decades)
not applicable	5 ppb	5–5	1	1	one paper
oil	14.65 ppb	10–19.3	2	2	yes
unstated	12.9 ppb	0.1–9.2e+05	181	162	no (2.1 decades)
water	12.87 ppb	0.0001–1.94e+03	33	31	no (2.6 decades)

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain octanoic acid ethyl ester. 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 octanoic acid ethyl ester in it.

210 cmpds

217 cmpds

364 cmpds

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