A humectant is a substance that prevents food from drying out in air with a low degree of humidity, or promotes the dissolution of a powder in an aqueous medium. On labels, this group is usually written as “humectant (422)”, or by the E or INS code of the substance.
Vietnam regulates additives through a list of permitted additives (Circular 24/2019/TT-BYT, referencing international Codex standards); a substance not on the list is not permitted in Vietnam, and that is the first tier of the Yenzo Scale — see how levels are set.
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Fun fact. According to the industry bodies that gave information to EFSA, glycerol for use as E 422 is made only from vegetable oils and fats, either directly or from crude glycerol that is a by-product of biodiesel production. The raw materials include oils such as rapeseed, palm and soy, and food grade glycerol is made by hydrolysis, saponification or transesterification. In hydrolysis (high-pressure splitting), water and fat are fed into a splitting column at 5–6 MPa and 250–260°C, giving a 15% solution of glycerol in water called “sweet water”. Saponification, the splitting of fats with alkali as in the production of soaps, is a traditional method. Crude glycerol of similar quality can also be obtained from the continuous transesterification of oils and fats to their methyl esters. Source: Follow-up of the re-evaluation of glycerol (E 422) as a food additive (EFSA Journal, 2022)
Humectants are used in foods that need to stay moist, or powders that need to dissolve in water. Each code has its own page with the functions given in Circular 24/2019/TT-BYT; for example sorbitol (E420), glycerol (E422), xylitol (E967) and erythritol (E968) are all listed with the function humectant.
Labels usually write the group name followed by the INS number in brackets, for example “humectant (422)”, or the code E422, or the name of the substance (glycerol). A substance may be written in any of these ways.
Yenzo does not rank additives. Some codes of this group that have a page on Yenzo: E420 (sorbitol), E422 (glycerol), E967 (xylitol), E968 (erythritol), E1520 (propylene glycol). All of them are named in Appendix 1 of Circular 24/2019/TT-BYT.
Updated 28 October 2026
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