Sodium malates (E350): What the Sources Found

Sodium malates is the acidity regulator the food industry lists as E350. 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 Sodium malates does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Sodium malates 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 FIP Unit, 'Call for data for the re-evaluation of malic acid and malates (E 296; E 350-352) as food additives' (efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-07/call-for-data-malic-acid-malates_0.pdf)
'Malic acid, sodium malate, potassium malate, and calcium malate, (E 296; E 350 (i), E 351, E 352(i)) have previously been evaluated by the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) in 1991 when a group ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake) "not specified" was established.' JECFA (1980) likewise confirmed the group ADI 'not specified' first established at its 13th meeting in 1969. 'Malate occurs in all living organisms as an intermediate in the citric acid cycle. It occurs in relatively high amounts in many fruits and vegetables.'
EFSA info session '(Re-)Evaluating Food Additives', Day 2, 20 March 2024 — 'Ongoing and upcoming calls for data' (efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-03/12-re-evaluations-food-additives-ongoing-and-upcoming-calls-for-data.pdf)
Lists 'Malic acid and malates (E 296; E 350-352)' among recently launched calls for data, with exposure data published 5 March 2024 and a deadline of 31 August 2024 — i.e. the EFSA re-evaluation opinion is still outstanding as of this table's date.
FDA 21 CFR 184.1069 (Malic acid) — Part 184 "Direct Food Substances Affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe"; verified against the current eCFR structure
Malic acid is affirmed GRAS as a direct human food substance. Its sodium salt has no separate Part 184 listing; the GRAS status the US shelf relies on is the acid one.
Law Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 Annex II, consolidated text 02008R1333 — EN — 16.12.2024 — 059.001 (EUR-Lex ELI: reg/2008/1333)
E 350 sodium malates authorised in the EU at quantum satis across the Group I categories.

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.