benzyl isothiocyanate

sulfurous sulfide

Found in 11 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H7NS
Molecular weight: 149.21 g/mol
PubChem CID: 2346 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: horseradish, watercress, pungent, mustard
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 693 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 622-78-6
Retention index: 1366

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 4428
GRAS publication: GRAS 23
FEMA primary name: Benzyl isothiocyanate

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	0.4	2
beverages (nonalcoholic)	0.2	1
breakfast cereal	0.2	1
cheese	0.4	2
condiments/ relishes	0.2	1
confectionery frostings	0.4	2
fats/oils	0.2	1
fish products	0.1	0.4
frozen dairy	0.4	2
fruit ices	0.4	2
gelatins/ puddings	1	5
gravies	1	5
imitation dairy	0.4	2
jams/jellies	1	5
meat products	0.1	0.4
milk products	0.4	2
other grains	0.2	1
poultry	0.1	0.4
processed fruits	0.3	1.5
seasonings/ flavors	0.2	1
snack foods	0.2	1
soups	0.2	1
sweet sauces	0.2	1

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.

dusty, horseradish, medicinal, mild, oily, watercress FlavorDB 2.0

pungent odor FlavorDB 2.0

characteristic aroma of the plant FlavorDB 2.0

spicy green plastic horseradish watercress nasturtium capers FlavorDB 2.0

butter, chemical, citrus, pear FlavorDB 2.0

horseradish, watercress, pungent, mustard 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

693 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
693 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	29868555, 36781893

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 (1927.415 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 1 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
mustard	5290.0	2.74	PMID 36894606
papaya	2935.0	1.52	DOI
cabbage	1507.6	0.78	Corpus paper
horseradish	10.2	0.01	—

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 benzyl isothiocyanate. 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 benzyl isothiocyanate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

389 cmpds

393 cmpds

253 cmpds

✓1 11 cmpds