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2-undecenal

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 29 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of 2-undecenal
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C11H20O
Molecular weight
168.28 g/mol
PubChem CID
62447 — full record on PubChem

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
sweet
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
340 ppb 1 published value · see all 6 with sources
Volatility
medium
CAS number
2463-77-6
Retention index
1364
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
3423
GRAS publication
GRAS 7
FEMA primary name
2-UNDECENAL

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.

sweet shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree
—
chemical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree
3
citrus, fat, fresh, fruity, green, orange peel, soap, sweet FlavorDB 2.0
17
Waxy, citrus peel, slightly soapy FlavorDB 2.0
2
soapy, metallic FlavorDB 2.0
1
tallowy, sweet FlavorDB 2.0
1

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

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

340 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
340 ppb water PMC open access —

In a food matrix

1.4 ppb – 108 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
1.4 ppb water (food: beef vegetable gravy) Literature corpus 10552650, 32165700, 34653803 +1
1.4 ppb water (food: pork vegetable gravy) Literature corpus 10552650, 32165700, 34653803 +1
1.4 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus 10552650, 32165700, 34653803 +1
7.5 ppb water (food: milk) Literature corpus 10552650, 39479676
108 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 32165700, 34653803

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 (1.4 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
beef 235000.0 167857 ⚡ Corpus paper
french fry 10000.0 7143 ⚡ Corpus paper
milk 873.5 624 ⚡ Corpus paper

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-undecenal. 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-undecenal in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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