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delta-decalactone

fruity lactone Key food odorant

Found in 31 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of delta-decalactone
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C10H18O2
Molecular weight
170.25 g/mol
PubChem CID
12810 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: coconut, peach.

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

Properties

Odor description
sweet, creamy, coconut, peach
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
100 ppb 1 published value · see all 4 with sources
Volatility
medium
CAS number
705-86-2
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match
FEMA number
4446
GRAS publication
GRAS 24
FEMA primary name
gamma-Octadecalactone

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 5 10
cheese 5 10
fats/oils 5 10
milk products 5 10
snack foods 5 10
Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 10 related FEMA records for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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, creamy, coconut, peach shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree
—
apricot, butter, coconut, creamy, dairy, fresh, fruity, oily, peach, plum, sweet FlavorDB 2.0
14
Milky creamy buttery coconut very tenacious FlavorDB 2.0
11
oily/peach FlavorDB 2.0
1
coconut and creamy FlavorDB 2.0
1
coconut candy, creamy 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

4 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

100 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
100 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

In a food matrix

31.0 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
31.0 ppb water (food: reference standard (water)) Literature corpus —

Retronasal / in-mouth

125 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
125 ppb water_flavor Leffingwell —

Other matrix

120 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
120 ppb oil (sunflower oil) (food: gouda cheese) 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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (90.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 4 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
fry bread 1912.0 21.2 ⚡ 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 delta-decalactone. 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 delta-decalactone in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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