Calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate (E482): What the Sources Found

Calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate is the emulsifier the food industry lists as E482. In our table it is high risk: it takes 30 of the 33 additive points off a product's score for a child.

In short

High risk. 30 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.
4 citations from EFSA, Law, each one below.

What Calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate takes 30 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.2013.3144
Re-evaluation of sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate (E 481) and calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate (E 482): ADI of 22 mg/kg bw per day established for E 481/E 482 singly or in combination, from a 1-year rat NOAEL of 2,200 mg/kg bw per day with an uncertainty factor of 100. One opinion, one ADI, both additives — the fact this row's class rests on.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2013.3144 (exposure conclusion)
Verbatim: exposure 'is below the ADI of 22 mg/kg bw/day for all the adult population including the elderly, but exceeds the ADI for other groups of the population at mean level and for all groups of the population at high level' — i.e. children exceed at the mean. The figure behind it is a COMBINED SSL+CSL exposure of 28-81 mg/kg bw/day for children at the mean; it is not an E 482-only estimate. Main sources: flavoured fermented milk products, bread and rolls, fine bakery wares.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2013.3125
Companion EFSA statement on the exposure assessment of SSL/CSL (including the extension of authorisation), reporting high-level toddler and child intake estimates well above the 22 mg/kg bw per day ADI.
Law Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II, consolidated text 02008R1333 — EN — 09.11.2025 (incorporating Commission Regulation (EU) 2025/2058; EUR-Lex ELI: reg/2008/1333)
E 482 calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate is authorised in the EU under Annex II alongside E 481, with maximum levels by food category — the sibling authorisation that makes E 482 a direct substitute manufacturers can switch to for E 481, and the reason the two are classified consistently as a family.

Why this class

IARC Group 1 or 2A with a dietary exposure route; or EFSA has withdrawn or negated a safety conclusion; or EFSA’s own exposure assessment finds a child age group exceeding the ADI at mean intake; or the substance is banned or formally being phased out for food use by the EU, by the US FDA, or under a US state law.

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.