furaneol

caramel furan Key food odorant

Found in 48 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C6H8O3
Molecular weight: 128.13 g/mol
PubChem CID: 19309 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (generalist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 16 generalist odorants — appears in >25% of foods, typically from generic Maillard, lipid-oxidation, or fermentation pathways. Characteristic odor: caramel-like, strawberry.

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

Properties

Odor description: caramel, strawberry, sweet
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.040 ppb – 5.0 ppb median 2.5 ppb · 2 published values · see all 29 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 3658-77-3
Retention index: 1070

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.

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-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2h)-furanone 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3-(2h)-furanone

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.

caramel, strawberry, sweet shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

fruity, floral FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

caramel, grape, strawberry, almond, sweet, cotton, candy, sugar FlavorDB 2.0

sweet flavor FlavorDB 2.0

caramel, strawberry FlavorDB 2.0

caramel and red fruit nuances 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

29 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

0.040 ppb – 5.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.040 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
5.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 4 studies	—

In a food matrix

5.0 ppb – 1025 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.0 ppb	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: maillard model (glucose + proline))	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: coffee, bread, tomato, strawberry)	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: coffee)	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: coffee, bread, tomato products)	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: maillard model (amadori compound degradation))	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: maillard model, strawberry, coffee, bread)	Literature corpus	—
10.0 ppb	water (food: coffee, strawberry)	Literature corpus	—
25.0 ppb	water (food: japanese soy sauce)	Literature corpus	—
34.0 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	—
40.0 ppb	water (food: pink guava)	Literature corpus	—
100 ppb	water (food: coffee)	Literature corpus	—
160 ppb	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
160 ppb	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
160 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
535 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	—
751 ppb	water (food: peanut)	Literature corpus	—
1025 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

4.0 ppb – 30.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.0 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
30.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

Other matrix

13.0 ppb – 53.5 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
13.0 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
21.0 ppb	citrate buffer ph 3.8 (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	—
25.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
25.0 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	—
25.0 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	—
51.0 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: red wine)	Literature corpus	—
53.5 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

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 (17.5 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 29 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
grape	462.2	26.4 ⚡	DOI
fish oil	300.0	17.1 ⚡	DOI
wine	0.4	0.02	Corpus paper
red wine	0.1	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 furaneol. 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 furaneol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

578 cmpds

565 cmpds

288 cmpds

9 cmpds