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Natamycin (E235)

Table v1.3 (data as of 14 Aug 2026), page updated 26 Sep 2026

Natamycin is the preservative the food industry lists as E235. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.

In short
  • The key finding, from EFSA: No ADI derivable due to database limitations, but 'the highest potential exposure to natamycin was below 0.1 mg/kg bw/day for children at the 97.5th percentile', judged to provide an adequate margin of safety versus JECFA's 0.3 mg/kg bw/day ADI; surface treatment of semi-hard/semi-soft cheese rind and sausage casings not of safety concern; 'no concern for the induction of antimicrobial resistance' (10.2903/j.efsa.2009.1412 (EFSA Journal 2009;7(12):1412))
  • 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 7 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in cheese. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
  • 2 citations from EFSA and the FDA, each one below.

What Natamycin 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. Natamycin 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.

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Sito app: a cereal scored 30 out of 100 for a child's age Sito app: logging a child's meal from a photo

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.

  • EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2009.1412 (EFSA Journal 2009;7(12):1412)
    No ADI derivable due to database limitations, but 'the highest potential exposure to natamycin was below 0.1 mg/kg bw/day for children at the 97.5th percentile', judged to provide an adequate margin of safety versus JECFA's 0.3 mg/kg bw/day ADI; surface treatment of semi-hard/semi-soft cheese rind and sausage casings not of safety concern; 'no concern for the induction of antimicrobial resistance'.
  • FDA 21 CFR ยง172.155 (natamycin/pimaricin)
    Permitted in the US for specified uses (cheese surface treatment).

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 Natamycin (E235) 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: No ADI derivable due to database limitations, but 'the highest potential exposure to natamycin was below 0.1 mg/kg bw/day for children at the 97.5th percentile', judged to provide an adequate margin of safety versus JECFA's 0.3 mg/kg bw/day ADI; surface treatment of semi-hard/semi-soft cheese rind and sausage casings not of safety concern; 'no concern for the induction of antimicrobial resistance' (EFSA, 10.2903/j.efsa.2009.1412 (EFSA Journal 2009;7(12):1412)).

What is E235?

E235 is the E number for Natamycin, a preservative. Open Food Facts tags it en:e235.

Next to it on the label

The E numbers either side of E235 in our table, then the closest preservatives by number.

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