4-methoxybenzaldehyde

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 27 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H8O2
Molecular weight: 136.15 g/mol
PubChem CID: 31244 — 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, anise, floral, hawthorn
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.630 ppb – 27.0 ppb median 1.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 3 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 123-11-5
Retention index: 2025

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4435
GRAS publication: GRAS 24
FEMA primary name: 2-Hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde

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	10	100
beverages (alcoholic)	20	50
beverages (nonalcoholic)	5	50
breakfast cereal	10	100
chewing gum	20	100
confectionery frostings	10	50
frozen dairy	10	50
gelatins/ puddings	10	50
hard candy	20	100
instant coffee/tea	10	25
milk products	10	50
seasonings/ fl avors	100	1000
soft candy	10	50
sweet sauces	10	50

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.

Also filed as

4-methoxy-benzaldehyde anisaldehyde p-anisaldehyde

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

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, floral, anise Flavornet Cas

—

almond, anise, balsam, berry, bitter, cherry, chocolate, cinnamon, creamy, floral, hawthorn, hawthorne, mimosa, mint, minty, powdery, sweet, vanilla FlavorDB 2.0

mint, sweet, creamy, hawthorne, anise, balsam, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, berry, cherry, almond, minty, powdery, mimosa, floral, hawthorn, bitter FlavorDB 2.0

sweet, minty FlavorDB 2.0

woody FlavorDB 2.0

sweetish, marzipan-like FlavorDB 2.0

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

3 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.

In a food matrix

0.630 ppb – 27.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.630 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—
1.0 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	—
27.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—

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 4-methoxybenzaldehyde. 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 4-methoxybenzaldehyde in it.

9 cmpds

21 cmpds

36 cmpds

38 cmpds