benzoic acid
sour acidFound in 371 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C7H6O2
- Molecular weight
- 122.12 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 243 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- urine
- Odor threshold — in a food matrix
- 0.040 ppb – 26.5 ppb median 3.4 ppb · 9 published values · see all 9 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 65-85-0
- Retention index
- 1163
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2131
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- BENZOIC ACID
Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.
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.
Published thresholds
9 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
0.040 ppb – 26.5 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.040 ppb | water (food: rum) | Literature corpus | 19320050, 19753606, 21534545 +26 |
| 0.060 ppb | water (food: melon) | Literature corpus | 34441460 |
| 0.708 ppb | water (food: honey) | Literature corpus | 41306594 |
| 1.4 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 29630662 |
| 3.4 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 19320050, 19753606, 22799100 +19 |
| 4.1 ppb | water (food: grape) | Literature corpus | 36890905 |
| 9.6 ppb | water (food: milk) | Literature corpus | 21534545 |
| 26.5 ppb | water (food: baijiu) | Literature corpus | 35513386 |
| 1170 ppb | water (food: bread) | Literature corpus | 41613919 |
| Flagged: 349× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
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 (3.35 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 9 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| melon | 800000.0 | 238806 ⚡ | PMID 30417566 |
| cumin | 500000.0 | 149254 ⚡ | PMID 37077903 |
| honey | 167800.0 | 50090 ⚡ | PMID 20657511 |
| rice | 126000.0 | 37612 ⚡ | PMID 36766166 |
| lemon | 76505.0 | 22837 ⚡ | PMID 25494537 |
| fermented goat milk | 40000.0 | 11940 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| pastry | 35940.0 | 10728 ⚡ | PMID 39384866 |
| oregano | 33000.0 | 9851 ⚡ | PMID 39821900 |
| mace | 20420.0 | 6096 ⚡ | PMID 39994508 |
| garlic peel | 7640.0 | 2281 ⚡ | — |
| bread | 1170.0 | 349 ⚡ | — |
| baijiu | 1150.0 | 343 ⚡ | — |
| saffron | 1050.0 | 313 ⚡ | — |
| milk | 179.0 | 53.4 ⚡ | — |
| sage | 50.0 | 14.9 ⚡ | — |
| rum | 13.3 | 3.99 | — |
| grape | 2.0 | 0.60 | — |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain benzoic acid. 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 benzoic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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