Potassium chloride (E508): What the Sources Found

Potassium chloride is the acidity regulator the food industry lists as E508. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score for a child.

In short

No risk identified. No regulator finding we score, so a product keeps all 33 additive points.
No child flag. Nothing below is written about children specifically, so the class is the same at every age.
4 citations from EFSA, FDA, Law, each one below.

What Potassium chloride does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Potassium chloride 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.

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.2019.5751 (EFSA Journal 2019;17(7):5751 — Re-evaluation of hydrochloric acid (E 507), potassium chloride (E 508), calcium chloride (E 509) and magnesium chloride (E 511) as food additives)
'The Panel identified a human dose of 40 mg chloride/kg bw per day as a reference value for the assessment. Mean levels of exposure in all age groups were below or at this reference value, which indicates no safety concern. In some age groups (toddlers, children and adolescents), the 95th percentile exposure estimates were slightly above this reference value. The Panel concluded that the exposure to chloride from hydrochloric acid and its potassium, calcium and magnesium salts (E 507, E 508, E 509 and E 511) does not raise a safety concern at the reported use and use levels.' In the non-brand-loyal scenario mean exposure ranged from 2 mg/kg bw/day in the elderly to 42 mg/kg bw/day in toddlers; the 95th percentile from 5 to 71 mg/kg bw/day in toddlers.
EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2019.5751 (EFSA Journal 2019;17(7):5751)
Same opinion: 'Chloride is an essential nutrient and after absorption is distributed to organs and tissues'; the Panel considered chlorides to be of low acute oral toxicity and found no concern with respect to genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. The pre-existing ADI was 'not specified' (SCF 1991; JECFA 1965).
FDA 21 CFR 184.1622 (Potassium chloride) — Part 184 "Direct Food Substances Affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe"; verified against the current eCFR text
Potassium chloride is affirmed GRAS as a direct human food substance with no limitation other than current good manufacturing practice, and 'may be used in infant formula' in accordance with the Act — the strongest US signal available that this is not a child-risk additive.
Law Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II, consolidated text 02008R1333 — EN — 16.12.2024 — 059.001 (EUR-Lex ELI: reg/2008/1333)
E 508 potassium chloride authorised in the EU at quantum satis.

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.