2-methylbutanoate

Key food odorant

Found in 3 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients.

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

Properties

Odor description: fruity, apple, sweet, green
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.960 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
CAS number: 3681-71-8

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4392
GRAS publication: GRAS 23
FEMA primary name: (+/-)-Ethyl 3-mercapto-2-methylbutanoate

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	0.2	1
beverages (alcoholic)	0.2	2
beverages (nonalcoholic)	0.1	1
breakfast cereal	0.2	1
condiments/ relishes	0.1	0.3
confectionery frostings	0.1	0.3
frozen dairy	0.1	0.5
gelatins/ puddings	0.1	0.4
granulated sugar	0.2	1
hard candy	0.2	2
imitation dairy	0.2	1
instant coffee/tea	0.2	1
milk products	0.1	0.3
other grains	0.2	1
processed vegetables	0.1	0.3
seasonings/ flavors	20	200
snack foods	0.1	0.5
soft candy	0.1	0.3
sugar substitutes	0.2	2

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 2 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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.

chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fruity, sweet FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

solvent FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

fruity, apple, sweet, green 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

1 measured value 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.

In a food matrix

0.960 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.960 ppb	water (food: tomato)	Literature corpus	28050733

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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.96 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 1 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
grape	15000.0	15625 ⚡	PMID 11308345
melon	9425.5	9818 ⚡	PMC12146550
apple	10.0	10.4 ⚡	PMID 37021304
pineapple	9.7	10.1 ⚡	PMID 30569201

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-methylbutanoate. 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-methylbutanoate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

201 cmpds

407 cmpds

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