Aluminium sodium sulphate (E521): What the Sources Found

Aluminium sodium sulphate is the acidity regulator the food industry lists as E521. 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 sodium sulphate does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Aluminium sodium sulphate 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 Journal 2018;16(7):5372 — doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5372, Re-evaluation of aluminium sulphates (E 520–523) and sodium aluminium phosphate (E 541)
No safety concern at current EU authorised uses (near-zero exposure); no genotoxicity/carcinogenicity concern; P95 aluminium exposure up to 0.88 mg/kg bw/day in toddlers and children flagged as highly uncertain.
Law Commission Regulation (EU) No 380/2012, EUR-Lex CELEX:32012R0380
Aluminium additive levels cut across the board for consumer protection; recitals rely on EFSA's TWI of 1 mg Al/kg bw/week being 'generally exceeded for high consumers, especially children'.
EFSA Journal 2008;6(7):754 — Safety of aluminium from dietary intake (AFC Panel, 22 May 2008)
TWI of 1 mg aluminium/kg bw per week established; dietary exposure exceeds it for a significant part of the European population, with children the group of concern.

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.