Annatto extract
Annatto extractAnnatto is the orange-yellow colour of cheddar, Red Leicester, Gloucester and butter. Colouring cheese began as a way to imply richness after the cream had been skimmed off — the practice is centuries old and the colour stayed.
Where it is and isn’t permitted
| Jurisdiction | Status | Scope and limits | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Permitted | 21 CFR 73.30retrieved 2026-09-07 | |
| Codex Alimentarius | Not listedDoes not appear on this jurisdiction’s permitted list. That is not the same as being prohibited. |
What it is made from
Extracted from the seed coat of Bixa orellana, the achiote tree of tropical America. Alkali extraction gives the water-soluble form used in cheese; oil extraction gives the fat-soluble one.
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
Every name it appears under
1 recorded name. A label may use any of them.
As it appears in regulation
- Annatto extract
Hazard reference values
No reference value for this substance in the sources we hold.
Evidence and how bodies read it
Studies, and the differing conclusions regulators drew from them, are curated by hand rather than machine-read, and none has been written for this substance yet.
Sources for this page
- ecfr retrieved 2026-09-07
Full licence terms and publisher details on Sources. How this page is built and updated: Method.
Machine-readable:/api/v1/additives/annatto-extract.json