What "Natural Flavor" Legally Means on a Food Label

When you see “natural flavor” or “artificial flavor” on a U.S. food ingredient list, both terms come from one federal regulation: 21 CFR 101.22. That section defines “natural flavor” by the biological source material it must come from and the function it must serve, and it defines “artificial flavor” largely by ruling out that same list of sources.

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• The controlling record is a single regulation, 21 CFR 101.22, published by the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations at ecfr.gov.
• “Natural flavor” is defined by physical form (essential oil, oleoresin, essence, extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or a product of roasting, heating, or enzymolysis) and by source material (spice, fruit, vegetable, yeast, herb, plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy, or fermentation products of those).
• The regulation also requires that a natural flavor’s “significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”
• “Artificial flavor” is defined as any flavor-imparting substance that is not derived from that same source list.
• This article covers only the legal definitions in the regulatory text itself — not what is inside any specific product’s flavor ingredient.

How the regulation defines “natural flavor”

21 CFR 101.22 states: “The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” (ecfr.gov)

Two things are doing work in that sentence. First, the definition names the physical/chemical forms a natural flavor can take — oils, oleoresins, essences, extractives, protein hydrolysates, distillates, and products of roasting, heating, or enzymolysis. Second, it names the source materials those forms must be derived from: spices, fruit or fruit juice, vegetables or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herbs, bark, buds, roots, leaves or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products of any of those.

The definition ends with a functional condition: the substance’s “significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.” That condition is part of the regulation’s definition of “natural flavor.”

How the regulation defines “artificial flavor”

The same section defines the counterpart term as “any substance, the function of which is to impart flavor, which is not derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof.” (ecfr.gov)

This definition works by exclusion. Rather than listing what artificial flavor is made of, it starts from the function of imparting flavor and defines “artificial” as a substance not derived from the listed source materials. The regulation gives the two terms separate definitions, including the source-material language quoted above.

What this regulation covers and cross-references

21 CFR 101.22 is the section of the Code of Federal Regulations that governs how “flavor” terms are used in food labeling generally, and the natural/artificial flavor definitions sit inside that broader labeling section. The definitions above are the operative regulatory language a reader would need to understand what these two terms mean as defined terms of federal law, independent of how any individual product’s label uses them.

What this article does not answer

This article explains only the legal definitions in 21 CFR 101.22 — it does not say which specific substances make up the “natural flavor” or “artificial flavor” ingredient in any particular product on a shelf; that depends on the manufacturer’s actual formulation, which the regulation does not disclose. It also does not address whether the word “natural” used elsewhere on a package — for example, in an “all natural” claim — carries this same legal meaning; that is a separate labeling question governed by different guidance. And it makes no claim, and the regulation makes no claim, about any health difference between natural and artificial flavoring; the definitions above are about source material and function, not safety or nutrition.

Source links

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/section-101.22