methyl octanoate

fruity ester

Found in 106 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C9H18O2
Molecular weight: 158.24 g/mol
PubChem CID: 8091 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: orange
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 200 ppb 2 published values · see all 7 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 111-11-5
Retention index: 1358

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2728
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: METHYL OCTANOATE

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

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.

orange shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

fruity, green, sweet, orange, tropical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

aldehydic, green, herbal, orange, sweet, vegetable, waxy FlavorDB 2.0

OILY, SOMEWHAT ORANGE TASTE FlavorDB 2.0

waxy green sweet orange aldehydic vegetable herbal 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

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

200 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
200 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
200 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In a food matrix

19.2 ppb – 1128 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
19.2 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	25717332, 36370882
87.0 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	24789719, 25717332, 36370882 +1
413 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	24789719, 25717332, 36370882 +1
1127 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	38519512
1128 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	24789719

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 (200.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 7 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
bread	1127.0	5.63	Corpus paper
honey	127.0	0.64	Corpus paper
lime	23.9	0.12	Corpus paper
yogurt	6.3	0.03	Corpus paper
wine	1.0	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 methyl octanoate. 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 methyl octanoate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

565 cmpds

13 cmpds

14 cmpds

spineless monkey orange

fruit

18 cmpds