Yellow 5 (E102): What the Sources Found

Tartrazine (Yellow 5) is the colour the food industry lists as E102. In our table it is moderate risk: it takes 15 of the 33 additive points off a product's score for a child.

In short

Moderate risk. 15 of the 33 additive points come off a product that carries it.
Flagged for young children. Set only where EFSA’s own exposure assessment shows toddlers or children exceeding or approaching the ADI, or where a regulator used explicitly child-specific language. For a child under 6 it moves one class up.
4 citations from EFSA, Law, OEHHA, each one below.

What Yellow 5 does to a score

A packaged food starts with 33 points for what is in its ingredient list. Yellow 5 takes 15 of the 33 additive points off a product's score, and a child under 6 sees it one class higher again. 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.2009.1331
ADI of 7.5 mg/kg bw/day retained; tartrazine can elicit intolerance reactions in a small fraction of the exposed population and sensitive individuals may react at dose levels within the ADI; McCann 2007 (Southampton) reviewed.
Law EU: Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, Annex V
Mandatory 'may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children' warning since July 2010.
OEHHA (2021) synthetic food dyes / children neurobehavioral assessment
Yellow 5 is one of the seven dyes assessed. OEHHA's overall conclusion is that synthetic food dyes can impact neurobehavior in some children; its review of human studies suggests that synthetic food dyes are associated with adverse neurobehavioral effects, such as inattentiveness, hyperactivity and restlessness in sensitive children, and that some children are likely to be more adversely affected than others.
Law US-CA: AB 2316 (California School Food Safety Act, signed 2024) ; US-WV: HB 2354 school-food provisions in force 2025-08-01
Banned from California public-school food from 2027-12-31; WV school-food ban already in force (WV's statewide 2028 ban preliminarily enjoined 2025-12-23).

Why this class

IARC Group 2B; or an EFSA re-evaluation that flagged genotoxicity data gaps, found safety could not be assessed on the available data, or cut the ADI citing child exposure; or an EU harmonised classification of the substance as a reproductive or developmental hazard; or an EU withdrawal of one authorised food use while others remain; or an OEHHA/Proposition 65 listing; or membership of the Southampton-six colourants.

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.