2-methylbutanoic acid ethyl ester

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 2 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: fruity.

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

Properties

Odor description: sweet, green, fruity
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.200 ppb – 0.225 ppb median 0.200 ppb · 3 published values · see all 12 with sources
CAS number: 7452-79-1

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.

Also filed as

2-methyl-butanoic acid ethyl ester

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

Published thresholds

12 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

0.200 ppb – 0.225 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.200 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
0.200 ppb	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	—
0.225 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

0.001 ppb – 0.013 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.001 ppb	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	—
0.006 ppb	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	—
0.013 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
3.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 231× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
15.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 1154× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.010 ppb – 0.510 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.010 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.510 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

0.260 ppb – 0.620 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.260 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	—
0.620 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-methylbutanoic 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 2-methylbutanoic acid ethyl ester in it.

364 cmpds

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