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Sorbic acid (E200)

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

Sorbic acid is the preservative the food industry lists as E200. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.

In short
  • The key finding, from EFSA: Group ADI 11 mg sorbic acid/kg bw/day for sorbic acid and potassium sorbate; no genotoxicity; refined toddler/children exposure well below the ADI (10.2903/j.efsa.2019.5625)
  • 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 75 of the 10,000 packaged foods scanned most on Open Food Facts, most often in bread, sauces and cakes. Nine in ten of those foods are sold in Europe (counted 26 Sep 2026).
  • 3 citations from EFSA, the FDA and Open Food Facts, each one below.

What Sorbic acid 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. Sorbic acid 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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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.2019.5625
    Group ADI 11 mg sorbic acid/kg bw/day for sorbic acid and potassium sorbate; no genotoxicity; refined toddler/children exposure well below the ADI.
  • FDA 21 CFR §182.3089 (sorbic acid, GRAS)
    GRAS in the US as a chemical preservative.
  • Open Food Facts additives taxonomy node en:e200
    Stale — superseded by the 2019 follow-up opinion.

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 Sorbic acid (E200) 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 11 mg sorbic acid/kg bw/day for sorbic acid and potassium sorbate; no genotoxicity; refined toddler/children exposure well below the ADI (EFSA, 10.2903/j.efsa.2019.5625).

What is E200?

E200 is the E number for Sorbic acid, a preservative. Open Food Facts tags it en:e200.

Next to it on the label

The E numbers either side of E200 in our table, then the closest preservatives by number.

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