Ingredient · Additive
Citric Acid
An acid used to adjust tartness and pH and to help preserve. Naturally present in citrus, but the commercial supply is produced by fermentation. Long-established and used in small amounts.
also known as E330
Citric acid occurs naturally in citrus, but essentially none of the commercial supply is squeezed from fruit. It is produced by fermenting sugar with the mould Aspergillus niger, a process dating to the 1910s that is cheaper and higher-yielding than extraction.
In a product it does three jobs at once: it adds sourness, it lowers pH enough to slow microbial growth, and it binds trace metals that would otherwise speed up spoilage. That versatility is why it appears so widely.
It is classified Neutral rather than Safe because it is a processing aid rather than a food — it tells you something about how a product was made, even though the additive itself carries no intake concern at the levels used.
Why it’s classified this way
Neutral: no intake concern at the levels used, but it is a processing aid rather than a food.