Ink Fish
Ink fish, traded in the food industry as cuttlefish or squid ink, is the dark secretion recovered from the ink sac of cephalopods of the genera Sepia and Loligo and used as a black colouring and flavouring ingredient.
The colour comes from eumelanin, an insoluble polymer of indole units, held in submicron granules that are suspended in a viscous matrix of protein, mucopolysaccharide and seawater salts. Because the melanin is a particulate rather than a dissolved dye, the ink disperses instead of dissolving, and the depth of black in a finished food depends on how finely the granules are distributed and how well they stay suspended. Alongside the colour it carries free amino acids, nucleotides and taurine, which give the marine, faintly briny savour that is the reason it is often chosen over a plain black colour.
It trades as a frozen or refrigerated paste, as a pasteurised ambient paste with adjusted salt, and as a spray dried powder carried on maltodextrin. The pigment itself is stable to heat, light and the pH range met in food, so the practical limits on shelf life come from the protein fraction rather than from the colour.
We source bulk Ink Fish from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturer is in Henan. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Colorant
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Uniform black to blue black viscous paste |
| Odour and Taste | Characteristic marine, free from putrid or rancid notes |
| Total Solids | 18.0 to 22.0% |
| Sodium Chloride | 6.0 to 10.0% |
| Protein | ≥ 4.0% |
| pH | 5.5 to 7.0 |
| Lead | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg |
| Cadmium | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg |
| Arsenic | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg |
| Histamine | ≤ 100 mg/kg |
| Total Plate Count | ≤ 10,000 cfu/g |
| Yeast and Mould | ≤ 100 cfu/g |
| E. coli | Absent in 1 g |
| Salmonella | Absent in 25 g |
Common Markets Grades
Grades separate on processing rather than on assay. Raw sac ink, frozen soon after the catch, carries the highest flavour intensity and the most variable solids, and is used where the ink is a culinary ingredient. Refined paste is screened, homogenised and standardised to a declared total solids figure, usually between 12 and 25 percent, with salt adjusted for preservation and a stated viscosity. Pasteurised ambient grades trade shelf life against a slight loss of the fresh marine note.
Spray dried powder is produced by drying the refined ink on maltodextrin or starch and typically carries 20 to 50 percent ink solids. It is used where a dry premix is needed, at the cost of some flavour and of the very deepest black, since drying and rehydration coarsen the melanin dispersion. Species is specified separately, as Sepia ink is generally darker and more viscous than Loligo ink.
Applications
- Black pasta and fresh noodles, where the ink is worked into the dough and colours the whole cross section rather than the surface
- Bread, bun and pizza dough, giving a matt charcoal crumb that survives baking without fading
- Risotto and paella style rice dishes, where the ink both colours the grain and supplies the marine base note
- Surimi, fish cake and imitation seafood, used to reproduce dark skin markings on the formed piece
- Sauces and seafood soup bases, where it contributes colour, viscosity and umami at the same time
- Sushi rice, dumpling wrappers and steamed bun doughs coloured for visual contrast
- Snack seasoning and coating blends, using the dried powder in a dry dosing system
- Ice cream, mousse and confectionery novelties that require a true black without a synthetic colour declaration
China Manufacturers of Ink Fish
Top Ink Fish manufacturers in China.
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
Cuttlefish ink is treated as a food ingredient rather than as a colour additive. In the United States it is used as an ingredient of seafood origin, not under a colour additive listing, and the finished food declares it by name. The European Union takes the same approach, so no E number applies and the ink appears in the ingredient list as cuttlefish or squid ink.
The controlling requirement is allergen labelling. Cephalopods are molluscs, which are a declarable allergen in the European Union, in the United Kingdom and in a number of other markets, so any food carrying the ink must declare the mollusc source. Products are further subject to the general controls on fishery products, which cover the hygiene of the harvesting vessel and the processing plant, and to the heavy metal limits applied to cephalopod tissue, cadmium in particular.
Manufacturing Process
Ink sacs are removed intact during cuttlefish and squid processing and chilled or frozen at once, since autolysis of the protein fraction begins quickly. At the ink plant the sacs are opened and the ink is expressed, then screened to take out sac membrane, connective tissue and grit. The screened ink is homogenised, which breaks up melanin agglomerates and sets the depth of the black, and salt and pH are adjusted to the target specification.
The standardised ink is then pasteurised or sterilised to control the microbial load carried in from the raw material, and finished in one of two ways. Liquid grades are cooled and filled into refrigerated or frozen packs, or hot filled as an ambient paste. Powder grades are mixed with maltodextrin or starch and spray dried at a low outlet temperature to limit further aggregation of the pigment, then sieved and packed under low humidity.
