Disodium 5'-ribonucleotides are the flavor enhancers the food industry lists as E635. In our table they are no risk identified: they take no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from the FDA: Both constituent salts (disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate) hold affirmative US food additive authorisations as flavour enhancers/adjuvants with no child-relevant restriction (21 CFR 172.530 and 21 CFR 172.535 (govinfo, CFR-2024-title21-vol3))
- No child flag. The class, and the points it costs, are the same for a child of any age.
- Where you meet it. They turn up in 34 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in chips and ready meals. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 2 citations from the FDA and EFSA, each one below.
What Disodium 5'-ribonucleotides do 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. Disodium 5'-ribonucleotides take 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.
-
FDA
21 CFR 172.530 and 21 CFR 172.535 (govinfo, CFR-2024-title21-vol3)
Both constituent salts (disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate) hold affirmative US food additive authorisations as flavour enhancers/adjuvants with no child-relevant restriction. -
EFSA
Call for data for the re-evaluation of ribonucleotides (E 626-635), 2023-06-28
E 635 sits inside the ribonucleotide group re-evaluation, which is under way with acknowledged data gaps and has produced no opinion, ADI or age-group exposure assessment.
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
Are Disodium 5'-ribonucleotides (E635) 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: Both constituent salts (disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate) hold affirmative US food additive authorisations as flavour enhancers/adjuvants with no child-relevant restriction (FDA, 21 CFR 172.530 and 21 CFR 172.535 (govinfo, CFR-2024-title21-vol3)).
What is E635?
E635 is the E number for Disodium 5'-ribonucleotides, which our table lists as a flavor enhancer. Open Food Facts tags it en:e635.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E635 in our table, then the closest flavor enhancers by number.
- Inosinic acid (E630), no risk identified
- Disodium inosinate (E631), no risk identified
- Dipotassium inosinate (E632), no risk identified
- Calcium inosinate (E633), no risk identified
- Calcium 5'-ribonucleotides (E634), no risk identified
- Glycine and its sodium salt (E640), low risk