Plain caramel is the color the food industry lists as E150a. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from EFSA: Refined exposure assessment: no population group, including toddlers and children, exceeded the ADI for E150a at mean or 95th-percentile intake (10.2903/j.efsa.2012.3030)
- 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 96 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in processed meats, sauces and cereal bars. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 2 citations from EFSA, each one below.
What Plain caramel 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. Plain caramel 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.2012.3030
Refined exposure assessment: no population group - including toddlers and children - exceeded the ADI for E150a at mean or 95th-percentile intake. -
EFSA
10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2004
E150a falls under the group ADI of 300 mg/kg bw/day; the lower 100 mg/kg specific ADI and the THI concern were assigned to E150c only.
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 high. 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 Plain caramel (E150a) 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: Refined exposure assessment: no population group, including toddlers and children, exceeded the ADI for E150a at mean or 95th-percentile intake (EFSA, 10.2903/j.efsa.2012.3030).
What is E150a?
E150a is the E number for Plain caramel, a color. It is one of the forms of E150 (Caramel) in our table, with E150b, E150c and E150d. Open Food Facts tags it en:e150a.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E150a in our table, then the closest colors by number.
- Caramel (E150), moderate risk, flagged for young children
- Caustic sulphite caramel (E150b), no risk identified
- Ammonia caramel (E150c), moderate risk, flagged for young children
- Sulphite ammonia caramel (E150d), moderate risk
- Brilliant Black BN (E151), no risk identified
- Vegetable carbon (E153), low risk