palmitoleic acid

caramel acid

Found in 8 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C16H30O2
Molecular weight: 254.41 g/mol
PubChem CID: 445638 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description: honey
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.210 ppb – 258 ppb median 18.7 ppb · 7 published values · see all 7 with sources
Volatility: low
CAS number: 373-49-9

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

(z)-9-hexadecenoic acid

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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.

In a food matrix

0.210 ppb – 258 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.210 ppb	water (food: strawberry)	Literature corpus	21534545, 22391602, 23285821 +11
0.500 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	22391602, 23285821, 28832536 +7
5.8 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	39242718
18.7 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	21534545
24.3 ppb	water (food: pork)	Literature corpus	39085314
254 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	21534545, 22391602, 23285821 +11
258 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	36950329

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

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	445638.0	23856 ⚡	—
tea	311.2	16.7 ⚡	—
milk	311.0	16.6 ⚡	—
fish	105.0	5.62	—
strawberry	0.4	0.02	—

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 palmitoleic acid. 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 palmitoleic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

54 cmpds

125 cmpds

174 cmpds

242 cmpds