2-acetyl-1-pyrroline
roasted pyrrole Key food odorantFound in 31 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C6H9NO
- Molecular weight
- 111.14 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 522834 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (generalist)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified 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.
Properties
- Odor description
- popcorn, roasted, bread crust
- Odor threshold
-
0.05 ppb
Varies by food: 0.05 – 0.1 ppb across the ingredients we hold it in. The figure shown is the lowest of those, not a measurement for any single food.
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 99583-29-6
- Retention index
- 1156
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 4249
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 22
- FEMA primary name
- 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline
Reported use levels (ppm by food category)
Typical vs maximum reported addition levels in finished food. Use as a regulatory ceiling reference — verify against the current GRAS publication for your product category.
| Food category | Typical (ppm) | Maximum (ppm) |
|---|---|---|
| baked goods | 2 | 10 |
| breakfast cereal | 0.2 | 1 |
| cheese | 0.4 | 2 |
| condiments/ relishes | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| confectionery frostings | 1 | 5 |
| fats/oils | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| fish products | 0.2 | 1 |
| frozen dairy | 0.4 | 2 |
| fruit ices | 0.4 | 2 |
| meat products | 0.2 | 1 |
| milk products | 0.4 | 2 |
| other grains | 0.2 | 1 |
| poultry | 0.2 | 1 |
| processed fruits | 0.4 | 2 |
| seasonings/ flavors | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| snack foods | 1 | 5 |
| soups | 0.1 | 0.5 |
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.
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.
Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.
Where you'd actually smell it
Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.05 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| rice bran | 1.8 | 35.6 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).
These OAVs depend on which threshold you divide by. Published values for this molecule span 0.05–0.1 ppb and the column above uses the lowest, which makes every OAV as large as it can be. At the high end each figure would be 2× smaller, and rows near the line would cross it. Read the colours as “worth a look”, not as a measurement.
Found in
Measured impact first, then profile shareEvery ingredient known to contain 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. 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 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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