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methyl propionate

fruity ester

Found in 21 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of methyl propionate
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C4H8O2
Molecular weight
88.11 g/mol
PubChem CID
11124 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
apple, fresh, fruity, harsh, rum, strawberry
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
12.9 ppb 1 published value · see all 2 with sources
Volatility
high
CAS number
554-12-1
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
2742
GRAS publication
GRAS 3
FEMA primary name
METHYL PROPIONATE

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.

Also filed as
methyl propanoate

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.

apple, fresh, fruity, harsh, rum, strawberry shown above FlavorDB 2.0
18
fruity ethereal juicy fruit rummy banana FlavorDB 2.0
1
fresh harsh rum fruity strawberry apple Flavordb Odor Column
—

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

2 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.

In a food matrix

12.9 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
12.9 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 40682092

In air

98.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
98.0 ppb air Nagata 2003 —

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 methyl propionate. 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 propionate in it.

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