Brilliant Black BN is the color the food industry lists as E151. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from EFSA: The Panel confirmed the existing ADI of 5 mg/kg bw/day established by the SCF in 1984 (10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1540)
- No child flag. The class, and the points it costs, are the same for a child of any age.
- Where you meet it. It turns up in 1 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 1 citation from EFSA, each one below.
What Brilliant Black BN does to a score
A packaged food's additive subscore starts at 100 and loses points for each additive on the label; that subscore is a third of the final score. Brilliant Black BN takes no points off a product's score. 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.
See what is in your own cupboard
Scan a packaged food and Sito names the additives in it, then scores the product out of 100 for your child's age.
What the sources found
Every classification in our table comes from the citations below, and nothing else. Each finding is our one-line summary of what the source concluded, with the source and reference beside it.
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EFSA
10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1540
The Panel confirmed the existing ADI of 5 mg/kg bw/day established by the SCF in 1984.
Why this class
Clean current EFSA and FDA status. These rows exist so that an unfamiliar additive is never treated as a bad one: a missing row costs a product nothing, and a clean row says so with citations.
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.
Questions parents ask
Is Brilliant Black BN (E151) safe for kids?
No risk identified. No regulator finding we score, so a product keeps its full additive subscore in Sito. The current status is clean: The Panel confirmed the existing ADI of 5 mg/kg bw/day established by the SCF in 1984 (EFSA, 10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1540).
What is E151?
E151 is the E number for Brilliant Black BN, a color. Open Food Facts tags it en:e151.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E151 in our table, then the closest colors by number.
- Caramel (E150), moderate risk, flagged for young children
- Plain caramel (E150a), no risk identified
- Caustic sulphite caramel (E150b), no risk identified
- Ammonia caramel (E150c), moderate risk, flagged for young children
- Sulphite ammonia caramel (E150d), moderate risk
- Vegetable carbon (E153), low risk