An E number means 'assessed', not 'artificial'.

An E number means 'assessed', not 'artificial'

Additives exist to do a job: keep food safe or fresh, hold a texture, carry a colour or replace sugar. Under EU rules a substance only gets an E number after it has been through safety evaluation — EFSA's job is the risk assessment, and the decision to authorise sits with the European Commission and member states, with reviews continuing once additives are on the market. Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab).

The surprise for most readers is how familiar some of the coded substances are. EFSA's own examples include vitamin C (E300), pectin (E440, the gelling agent in jam), lycopene (E160d, a pigment from tomatoes) and lecithin (E322, the emulsifier that keeps chocolate smooth). Additives can be derived from plants, animals or minerals, or made synthetically — the code says nothing about which. Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab).

So the code carries one narrow promise: this substance was assessed and authorised for this use. It does not make the food healthy, and it does not mean unlimited amounts are harmless — safety assessments set levels of use — but "contains E415" is a statement about a named, reviewed ingredient, not an alarm bell. Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab).

The families: colours to sweeteners

The numbers roughly sort by job, so you can usually tell the family from the first digits. The hundred-blocks run in a familiar order: E100s are colours; E200s preservatives; E300s antioxidants and acidity regulators; E400s the thickeners, stabilisers, emulsifiers and gelling agents; E500s raising agents and more acidity work; E600s flavour enhancers. Sweeteners largely live in the E900s and above, alongside glazing agents and packaging gases.

EFSA groups additives by their function — colours, preservatives, antioxidants, emulsifiers, stabilisers, gelling agents, thickeners and sweeteners among them — and that function is what the label is built around. Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab).

In the ingredients list an additive appears as its function word plus the substance, named or numbered: "colour: beetroot red", "preservative: E202", "emulsifier: lecithin". The function word is the part worth reading first — it tells you why the ingredient is there at all. Source: EFSA Safe2Eat on food additives (opens in a new tab). The ingredients-list guide covers the full list mechanics.

Common codes worth recognising

A handful of codes do most of the label work. These are the ones worth recognising on sight — all of them examples EFSA uses itself or additives with long, ordinary service records: Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab).

• E300 — ascorbic acid. Vitamin C working as an antioxidant; it stops cut flavours and colours oxidising, not because your pack is a supplement.
• E322 — lecithin. The emulsifier that keeps chocolate and mayonnaise holding together.
• E440 — pectin. The gelling agent from fruit that sets jam and fruit sweets.
• E160d — lycopene. The red pigment named after tomatoes, used to colour food.
• E415 — xanthan gum. The thickener behind the texture of sauces, dressings and most gluten-free baking.
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites. The preservatives behind "contains sulphites" — they get their own section below, because they sit in two labelling systems at once.

When an additive deserves a second look

Authorisation is not a lifetime pass: EFSA re-evaluates additives over time, and uses can be narrowed or codes withdrawn when the science moves. The label system is built so you can always find the substance — function word plus name or number is mandatory — which is the mechanism that makes any later review meaningful. Source: EFSA on food additives (opens in a new tab) Source: EFSA Safe2Eat on food additives (opens in a new tab).

Some additives carry their own flagging duties on top of the listing — certain colours, for instance, come with required warnings on pack. The practical habit is the same either way: if a code matters to you, the label tells you it is there.

If a specific additive seems not to agree with you, that is an individual-sensitivity question for a clinician — not something an ingredients list can adjudicate. The allergy, intolerance or coeliac guide explains why those routes differ and who answers which.

Sulphites and the allergen overlap

Sulphur dioxide and the sulphites are the clearest case of one substance living in two systems. As additives they are preservatives — the reason wine labels and dried-fruit packs carry them — but they are also one of the fourteen allergens UK food businesses must declare: above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/l in the finished food, they have to be named. Source: FSA allergen labelling technical guidance (opens in a new tab).

So the same ingredient can appear twice on one label — once in the ingredients list doing its preservative job, and once as a declared allergen for the people who react to it. If sulphites are a concern for you, the 14-allergens guide covers how the declaration works and where sulphites tend to show up.

US 'generally recognized' vs EU 'E'

The US runs the same idea under different grammar. Under FDA rules, any substance reasonably expected to become a component of food is a food additive subject to premarket approval — unless it is "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) among qualified experts under its intended use, or another exclusion applies. The register of statuses exists, but the everyday label shows ingredient names, not E codes. Source: US FDA on ingredient regulatory status (opens in a new tab).

So the same substance can wear two outfits: "xanthan gum" on a US label is "E415" on an EU one. Neither wording is alarming by itself — the systems differ in how they name things, not in whether the ingredient was looked at.

And the boundary that applies everywhere: rules are jurisdiction-bound — an EU authorisation is a statement about the EU market. A photo of an ingredients list can help you spot a code to look up — the scanner can even name the product family — but no lookup can certify what is inside a particular pack, or whether an additive is right for you. The photo guide keeps that line exact.