ethyl 2-phenylacetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 3 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

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 threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 650 ppb 1 published value · see all 7 with sources
CAS number: 101-97-3
Retention index: 1244

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

Published thresholds

7 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

650 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
650 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

4.0 ppb – 1243 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.060 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	26973621
Flagged: 473× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
4.0 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	26973621
6.1 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	26973621
50.6 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	26973621
93.7 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	26973621
1243 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	26973621

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 ethyl 2-phenylacetate. 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 ethyl 2-phenylacetate in it.

115 cmpds

320 cmpds

Into the chemistry?

Get a molecule-level pairing breakdown each week — which ingredients share a compound, and why it matters at the table. Free, no spam.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Try the pairing tools to see which ingredient combinations rely on ethyl 2-phenylacetate, or compare two ingredients side-by-side.