Potassium tartrates are the acidity regulators the food industry lists as E336. In our table they are no risk identified: they take no points off a product's score.
- The key finding, from EFSA: Group ADI 240 mg/kg bw/day as tartaric acid for E 334 to 337 and E 354; no safety concern at reported uses and use levels for any population group (EFSA Journal 2020;18(3):6030, doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6030)
- 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 42 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in cookies and cakes. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
- 1 citation from EFSA, each one below.
What Potassium tartrates 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. Potassium tartrates 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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EFSA
Journal 2020;18(3):6030 — doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6030
Group ADI 240 mg/kg bw/day as tartaric acid for E 334–337 and E 354; no safety concern at reported uses and use levels for any population group.
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
Are Potassium tartrates (E336) 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: Group ADI 240 mg/kg bw/day as tartaric acid for E 334 to 337 and E 354; no safety concern at reported uses and use levels for any population group (EFSA Journal 2020;18(3):6030, doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6030).
What is E336?
E336 is the E number for Potassium tartrates, which our table lists as an acidity regulator. Open Food Facts tags it en:e336.
Next to it on the label
The E numbers either side of E336 in our table, then the closest acidity regulators by number.
- Potassium citrates (E332), no risk identified
- Calcium citrates (E333), no risk identified
- L(+)-tartaric acid (E334), no risk identified
- Phosphoric acid (E338), high risk, flagged for young children
- Sodium phosphates (E339), high risk, flagged for young children
- Potassium phosphates (E340), high risk, flagged for young children