Ammonia caramel (E150c): What the Sources Found

Ammonia caramel is the colour the food industry lists as E150c. 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, OEHHA, each one below.

What Ammonia caramel does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Ammonia caramel 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 10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2004
Group ADI 300 mg/kg bw/day for E150a-d, but a lower individual ADI of 100 mg/kg bw/day for E150c because of possible immune effects of its constituent THI. SUPERSEDED IN PART: the clause that combined mean intake for children exceeded the group ADI at maximum reported use levels is superseded by the 2012 refined assessment (refined combined means 12-105 mg/kg bw/day, all below 300). The individual-ADI half stands and is what this row's class and higher-concern-for-young-children flag rest on.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2012.3030
Refined exposure: toddlers exceed the E150c ADI of 100 mg/kg bw/day at the upper end of the 95th percentile. This is the age-group-specific basis for this row's higher-concern-for-young-children flag, and — via E 150c's dominance of resolved caramel occurrences — for the en:e150 parent's higher-concern-for-young-children flag too.
OEHHA Prop 65, 4-methylimidazole (listed as carcinogen 2011); NSRL 29 ug/day (oehha.ca.gov/sites/default/files/media/100711_4MEIfindings.pdf)
4-MEI, formed during manufacture of ammonia caramels, is a Prop 65 listed carcinogen with a No Significant Risk Level of 29 ug/day.

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 high. 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.