Tartrazine (E102): the yellow food dye that carries a warning label
Tartrazine is the bright-yellow dye in sweets, drinks and sauces — and one of six colours that must carry a specific warning on EU labels. Here's what that warning means and what EFSA concluded.
Tartrazine — additive E102 — is a synthetic azo dye that gives a vivid lemon-yellow colour to soft drinks, sweets, sauces, snacks and some medicines. It's one of a small group of additives that EU law singles out for a mandatory warning, which makes it a useful case study in how regulators handle uncertainty.
The warning label you may have seen
Tartrazine is one of the "Southampton Six" colours. Following a 2007 UK study (University of Southampton) linking a mix of these dyes to increased hyperactivity in some children, EU law requires any food containing them to carry the phrase: "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children". That warning is why several manufacturers reformulated to natural colours — commercially, the label was a stronger deterrent than any ban.
What EFSA concluded
- EFSA re-evaluated tartrazine and set an Acceptable Daily Intake of 7.5 mg per kg of body weight per day, concluding it's safe for the general population at that level.
- It can trigger reactions in a small number of sensitive individuals (for example, some people with a known intolerance), which is a separate matter from the general-population safety assessment.
The regulatory position in short: tartrazine is permitted and considered safe within its intake limit, but the mandatory children's-attention warning reflects genuine residual uncertainty — which is exactly why it's on the label.
Spotting it and its cousins
Azo dyes hide in products you might not expect — not just sweets, but sauces, pickles and drinks. Rather than memorising six E-numbers, scanning the barcode surfaces them for you, with the regulatory context attached. Forkin's public additive index covers tartrazine and the rest of the colour class, and the E-numbers guide explains how the categories fit together.