Caramel I – plain caramel

E number E150aINS 150a

Used as a colour.

Plain caramel is the simplest of the four caramel colour classes, made by heating carbohydrates without ammonium or sulfite compounds. It gives the brown colour in spirits, vinegars, baked goods and some sauces.

Where it is and isn’t permitted

Status of Caramel I – plain caramel by jurisdiction. Every jurisdiction this site covers is listed, including those where the substance does not appear.
JurisdictionStatusScope and limitsCitation
United StatesFood and Drug AdministrationNot listedDoes not appear on this jurisdiction’s permitted list. That is not the same as being prohibited.
Codex AlimentariusCodex Alimentarius Commission / JECFAPermitted, with conditions

11 food categories

no numerical limit (good manufacturing practice)

Show every food category
  • 04.2.2.7 Fermented vegetable (including mushrooms and fungi, roots and tubers, pulses and legumes, and aloe vera) and seaweed products, excluding fermented soybean products of food categories 06.8.6, 06.8.7, 12.9.1, — GMP
  • 06.4.2 Dried pastas and noodles and like products — GMP
  • 08.1.1 Fresh meat, poultry and game, whole pieces or cuts — GMP
  • 08.1.2 Fresh meat, poultry and game, comminuted — GMP
  • 09.2.2 Frozen battered fish, fish fillets and fish products, including molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms — GMP
  • 09.2.4.1 Cooked fish and fish products — GMP
  • 09.2.4.2 Cooked molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms — GMP
  • 09.2.4.3 Fried fish and fish products, including molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms — GMP
  • 09.2.5 Smoked, dried, fermented, and/or salted fish and fish products, including molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms — GMP
  • 14.1.5 Coffee, coffee substitutes, tea, herbal infusions, and other hot cereal and grain beverages, excluding cocoa — GMP
  • 14.2.3.3 Fortified grape wine, grape liquor wine, and sweet grape wine — GMP
CXS 192-1995 Table Three, INS 150aand 11 further provisionsretrieved 2026-09-07

What it is made from

Produced by controlled heating of food-grade carbohydrates — typically glucose syrup or sucrose from maize, wheat or cane — with no ammonium or sulfite reagents. That distinguishes it from the other caramel classes, which use them and carry different specifications.

  • Vegan
  • Vegetarian

Every name it appears under

7 recorded names. A label may use any of them.

E number

  • E150a

INS number

  • 150a

Other names

  • CARAMEL I - PLAIN CARAMEL
  • Caustic caramel
  • Class I Plain Caramel
  • E 150a
  • Plain caramel

Hazard reference values

Values set by assessing bodies. A body that has not set a value is not listed here.
TypeValuePopulationAssessed byOpinion
ADI300 mg/kg bw/dayconsumersEFSA ANS2011

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

  • gsfa 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/caramel-i-plain-caramel.json