Caproic acid derives its vegan and vegetarian status from coconut oil, palm kernel oil.
| Vegan? Yes | Vegetarian? Yes |
Classifications are made based on the available commercial supply of the ingredient, and are made based on the criteria on our classifications page.
Commercially available caproic acid is vegan and vegetarian.
Caproic acid, also known as hexanoic acid, is a medium chain (C6) fatty acid which appears as a colorless liquid. It is primarily used to manufacture artificial flavors. Although it does contain some trace amounts of caproic acid animal fat like tallow mostly contains long chain fatty acids and so are not used to commercially produce these short and medium chain fatty acids. It is commercially obtained from coconut or palm kernel oil which is hydrolyzed and then fractionally distilled.
Sources
- Kubitschke, J., Lange, H., & Strutz, H. (2014). Carboxylic Acids, Aliphatic. Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1002/14356007.a05_235.pub2 - https://amp.chemicalbook.com/ChemicalProductProperty_EN_CB3224164.htm?N=India
- https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/caproic%20acid
- Khor, W. C., Andersen, S., Vervaeren, H., & Rabaey, K. (2017). Electricity-assisted production of caproic acid from grass. Biotechnology for Biofuels, 10(1).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0863-4