Instruments
Every fact on this site cites a document, and the citation assumes the reader knows what Annex II or 21 CFR 184 is. These pages say what each document covers, how it is arranged, what this site takes from it and what it leaves behind — so a citation has somewhere to land, and an absence has an explanation rather than a shrug.
European Union
- Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 on food additives
Which additives may be used in the European Union, in which foods, and at what level. It also sets the general conditions of use, the carry-over principle and the labelling duties that attach to particular additives.
- Regulation (EU) No 231/2012 laying down specifications for food additives
What a substance must be to count as the additive that Regulation 1333/2008 permits: its definition, how it is made, what it must assay at, and the limits on lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium.
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers
What a food label must say. For additives, that means how they are named in an ingredients list and the additional statements certain ones oblige.
Great Britain
- Assimilated Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, as it applies in Great Britain
The same ground as the EU regulation it began as. Great Britain kept the instrument on withdrawal and has amended it since, so the two texts have diverged.
United States
- Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the food additive and colour additive parts
Substances the FDA has affirmed or listed for use in food, and the colours it has listed. It is not a complete account of what may lawfully be used in the United States, because a substance generally recognised as safe needs no listing.
Codex Alimentarius
- Codex General Standard for Food Additives
Which additives may be used in which foods internationally, at what level, with the food category system the standard defines. It is a reference standard, not law in any country until that country adopts it.
- Combined Compendium of Food Additive Specifications
What a substance must be to count as the additive, in JECFA's own terms: definition, assay, identification and purity. Advisory until a country adopts it.
- Evaluations of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives
What JECFA concluded about a substance at each of its meetings, including the acceptable daily intake it set and the meeting and year it set it.
Australia and New Zealand
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code
One instrument for two countries. Standard 1.3.1 permits additives; the schedules carry the detail.
Canada
- Health Canada's Lists of Permitted Food Additives
Fifteen lists, one per purpose of use — preservatives, colouring agents, emulsifiers and so on — each naming the foods an additive may be used in and the level.
Japan
- Japan's designated additives and the standards for their use
The additives the Minister has designated as permitted, and the standards that limit how many of them may be used.
South Korea
- South Korea's Standards and Specifications for Food Additives
The additives the Ministry has designated as permitted, with the main use and the standard for use of each.
Sources records what was fetched from each and when, generated from the database rather than written. This page is its editorial companion. See also the jurisdictions and the glossary.