Aluminium (E173): What the Sources Found

Aluminium is the colour the food industry lists as E173. In our table it is moderate risk: it takes 15 of the 33 additive points off a product's score for a child.

In short

Moderate risk. 15 of the 33 additive points come off a product that carries it.
Flagged for young children. Set only where EFSA’s own exposure assessment shows toddlers or children exceeding or approaching the ADI, or where a regulator used explicitly child-specific language. For a child under 6 it moves one class up.
3 citations from EFSA, Law, each one below.

What Aluminium does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Aluminium takes 15 of the 33 additive points off a product's score, and a child under 6 sees it one class higher again. Scan the pack in Sito and the score you get is the one for your own child's age, with this additive named in the reasons. How we score has the whole method.

What the sources found

Every classification in our table comes from the citations below, and nothing else. They are quoted as the source wrote them.

EFSA AFC Panel (2008), Safety of aluminium from dietary intake - TWI 1 mg Al/kg bw/week
Tolerable weekly intake set at 1 mg aluminium/kg bw/week; a significant proportion of the European population exceeds it, and the TWI can be exhausted or slightly exceeded for children.
Law EU: Commission Regulation (EU) No 380/2012 (CELEX 32012R0380)
Conditions of use and use levels for aluminium-containing food additives amended and reduced specifically to ensure the EFSA TWI is not exceeded by European consumers.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2023.8106
EFSA continues to treat dietary aluminium load as an open concern - the unavoidable aluminium content of calcium carbonate (E170) was flagged as needing to be addressed.

Why this class

IARC Group 2B; or an EFSA re-evaluation that flagged genotoxicity data gaps, found safety could not be assessed on the available data, or cut the ADI citing child exposure; or an EU harmonised classification of the substance as a reproductive or developmental hazard; or an EU withdrawal of one authorised food use while others remain; or an OEHHA/Proposition 65 listing; or membership of the Southampton-six colourants.

Our confidence in this row's classification is medium. Medium or low does not mean the evidence is weak; it means something about the row is still being pinned down, usually a regulatory status confirmed from one source rather than two.