Carbamide (urea) (E927b)

Carbamide (urea) is the additive the food industry lists as E927b. In our table it is no risk identified: it takes no points off a product's score.

What urea 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. urea 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. Each finding is our one-line summary of what the source concluded, with the source and reference beside it.

• EU law Commission Regulation (EU) No 1129/2011 (establishing Annex II Part B to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008); Commission Regulation (EU) No 231/2012, specifications for E 927b CARBAMIDE
  VERIFIED in the primary text: 'E 927b Carbamide' is listed in Annex II Part B among additives other than colours and sweeteners — the Union positive list — and Reg 231/2012 gives it full identity and purity specifications (synonym urea, assay not less than 99.0%). The permitted use is chewing gum with no added sugar at a maximum of 30,000 mg/kg; the Part B listing was quoted directly, while the 30,000 mg/kg level is corroborated by secondary additive databases and by JECFA's 3% figure rather than quoted from the truncated consolidated Part E text.
• Agency review JECFA evaluations — urea/carbamide (WHO/FAO JECFA database, chemical 2177; 41st meeting, 1993)
  'Use at levels of up to 3% in chewing-gum not of toxicological concern.' This is a positive assessment at the same level the EU permits — the classification rests on an affirmative clean finding, not on an absence of evidence.
• EFSA 10.2903/j.efsa.2023.8112 (EFSA 2023 peer review of the pesticide risk assessment for urea) and 10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2071 (EFSA NDA Panel 2011, carbamide chewing gum and plaque acid neutralisation, claim ID 1153)
  Supportive, not load-bearing. The 2023 pesticide peer review notes urea's historical safe use as food additive E 927b; the 2011 NDA opinion assessed a positive health claim for carbamide chewing gum without raising a safety concern. No EFSA re-evaluation of E 927b as a food additive has been published as of 2026-08.

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.

Questions parents ask

Is urea (E927b) 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: 'Use at levels of up to 3% in chewing-gum not of toxicological concern.' This is a positive assessment at the same level the EU permits, the classification rests on an affirmative clean finding, not on an absence of evidence (JECFA evaluations, urea/carbamide (WHO/FAO JECFA database, chemical 2177; 41st meeting, 1993)).

What is E927b?

E927b is the E number for Carbamide, an additive. It is also called urea. It is one of the forms of E927 (Azodicarbonamide and carbamide) in our table, with E927a. Open Food Facts tags it en:e927b.

Next to it on the label

The E numbers either side of E927b in our table, then the closest additives of the same kind by number.

• L-cysteine (E920), no risk identified
• Potassium bromate (E924a), high risk
• Chlorine dioxide (E926), no risk identified
• Azodicarbonamide and carbamide (E927), low risk, flagged for young children
• Azodicarbonamide (E927a), low risk, flagged for young children
• Calcium peroxide (E930), no risk identified