Montanic acid esters are the additives the food industry lists as E912. In our table they are no risk identified: they take no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from EU law: E 912 authorised in the EU only for the surface treatment of specified fruits; no general food use (Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II)
- No child flag. The class, and the points it costs, are the same for a child of any age.
- Where you meet it. None of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts list them. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 1 citation from EU law, each one below.
What Montanic acid esters 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. Montanic acid esters 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.
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EU law
Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II
E 912 authorised in the EU only for the surface treatment of specified fruits; no general food use.
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 low. 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 Montanic acid esters (E912) 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: E 912 authorised in the EU only for the surface treatment of specified fruits; no general food use (EU law, Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II).
What is E912?
E912 is the E number for Montanic acid esters, which our table lists as an additive. Open Food Facts tags it en:e912.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E912 in our table, then the closest additives of the same kind by number.
- White and yellow beeswax (E901), no risk identified
- Carnauba wax (E903), no risk identified
- Shellac (E904), no risk identified
- Synthetic wax (E905), no risk identified
- Oxidised polyethylene wax (E914), no risk identified
- L-cysteine (E920), no risk identified