Food additives are generally defined as substances or mixtures of substances that are not food alone but are added to foods at stages such as production, processing, storage or packaging.
The definition according to the International Food Codex Commission; food additive is defined as "substances that are not used as food alone and are not a typical component of food, whether or not they have nutritional value, are added to foods for technological (including organoleptic) purposes during the manufacturing, processing, preparation, application, packaging, packaging, packaging, transportation, preservation and storage stages, or directly or indirectly become a component of these foods or their by-products or change their characteristics".