Ponceau 4R

Ponceau 4R (E124), known as Cochineal Red A in some markets, is a synthetic azo dye that produces bright strawberry-red to cherry-red colouration in foods and beverages. It is used in cocktail cherries, tinned strawberries, fruit-flavoured drinks, and certain confectionery items where vivid red appearance and heat or acid stability are required. Chemically it is a trisodium azo dye with a complex naphthalene-disulfonate structure.

JECFA evaluated Ponceau 4R in 1965 and set an ADI of 0–4 mg per kg body weight per day, equivalent to 240 mg daily for a 60 kg adult. Like many of the earliest JECFA colour evaluations, this assessment has not been comprehensively revised. No EFSA numerical ADI for Ponceau 4R appears in the EFSA OpenFoodTox 3.0 database, though EFSA conducted a systematic re-evaluation of permitted food colours in the 2010s.

Ponceau 4R is among the six food colours in the EU subject to the mandatory warning statement "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children" under Regulation (EC) 1333/2008, stemming from the 2007 Southampton study (McCann et al., The Lancet). It is not permitted in the United States or Canada, but is approved in the EU, UK, Australia, and some other markets. As with other azo dyes requiring the warning label, many manufacturers in the EU and UK have reformulated products to remove Ponceau 4R in favour of natural red colourants.