Household Ingredients Compared › Jerky and Dried Seafood Snacks (Singapore)

Jerky and Dried Seafood Snacks: what's actually in it?

Two different snacks share this shelf. Jerky is dried, seasoned meat — beef here, sold by Jack Link's and others — where the list is beef first, then sugar, salt, soy sauce, yeast extract and smoke flavouring. Dried seafood snacks are Singapore's own tradition: prepared cuttlefish and grilled cuttlefish slices (Ken Ken, Fragrance), where the list is cuttlefish first (about 94%), then sugar, sorbitol, chilli sauce, fish sauce and flavour enhancers. Both are high-sugar, high-salt snacks by recipe — the lists show it plainly — and this page does not rank them. Dried anchovies and dried seafood for cooking are a different category (see the dried seafood page) and are not panelled here; this page is snack packs only.

This page does not give a health score or a "best" pick. It shows the ingredient list as printed and flags what to notice.

The headline, in 30 seconds

Jack Link's Beef Jerky Original is beef, sugar, salt, soy sauce. The EU specification list is: beef, sugar, sea salt, dried soy sauce (wheat, soybeans, salt, maltodextrin), hydrolysed corn protein, yeast extract, spices, curing salt (salt, preservative sodium nitrite), antioxidant (extracts of rosemary), acidity regulator (citric acid), flavourings, pineapple powder, wood smoke. It takes 161 g of beef for 100 g of jerky, per the specification.
The US and EU Jack Link's lists differ. The US list is shorter (beef, water, sugar, salt, soy sauce, flavourings, hydrolysed corn protein, yeast extract, citric acid) and the EU list adds dried soy sauce, curing salt with sodium nitrite, rosemary extract and smoke flavouring. Same brand, different market — flagged, not merged.
Ken Ken Whole Piece Cuttlefish is 93.70% cuttlefish. Cuttlefish (Sepia spp.) 93.70%, sugar, sorbitol, chilli sauce (chilli, tomato, sorbic acid), fish sauce (anchovies, sorbic acid), citric acid, salt, pepper, flavour enhancer (E621 monosodium glutamate), aspartame, food colouring (E110, E102). Sold in Singapore since the 1970s as the "chewing gum of the Orientals".
Fragrance Grilled Cuttlefish Slices are simpler. Cuttlefish, sugar, palm oil, chilli powder — from a photographed SG pack (secondary source). Product of Singapore, manufactured by Fragrance Foodstuff Pte Ltd.
Sweeteners appear in both groups. Sugar in every panelled list; aspartame in the Ken Ken cuttlefish (with a phenylalanine warning); brown sugar in the Simms and Sweet & Hot jerkies.

At a glance

Product	Group	First ingredient	Flag to notice	Pack size (as printed)	Country of manufacture (as printed)
Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Original (EU spec)	Beef jerky	Beef	161 g beef per 100 g jerky; nitrite curing salt	25 g	Brazil
Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Original (US list)	Beef jerky	Beef	Shorter US list; flagged	not stated	not stated
Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Sweet & Hot (US)	Beef jerky	Beef	Brown sugar added; flagged	not stated	not stated
Simms Original Beef Jerky (US)	Beef jerky	Beef	Brown sugar + beef broth; flagged	not stated	not stated
Ken Ken Whole Piece Cuttlefish Snack	Dried cuttlefish	Cuttlefish 93.70%	Aspartame + MSG; Shopee SG official store	not stated	not stated
Fragrance Grilled Cuttlefish Slices	Dried cuttlefish	Cuttlefish	Pack-photo list; product of Singapore	not stated	Singapore

Panelled with verbatim lists: 6 products. Seen-but-not-verified: see the list below. No prices are shown here: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Original — flagged EU specification list

Pack size: 25 g · Made in: Brazil (as printed)

Ingredients (Jack Link's EU customer specification (LSI Germany, dated 17 March 2025) and Open Food Facts EU entries — NOT an SG pack list): Beef, sugar, sea salt, dried SOY sauce (WHEAT, SOYbeans, salt, maltodextrin), hydrolysed corn protein, yeast extract, spices, curing salt (salt, preservative (sodium nitrite)), antioxidant (extracts of rosemary), acidity regulator (citric acid), flavourings, pineapple powder, wood smoke. It takes 161 g of beef for 100 g of Beef Jerky.

Certifications on the specification: BRCGS Food Safety, Halal, GMO free. Allergens: beef, gluten, soy. The EU list is the fuller of the two Jack Link's Original lists retrieved — the US list (next card) is shorter and differently ordered, so the two are panelled separately. Flagged: EU specification, not an SG pack list; the SG pack (sold in Singapore) must be checked before publish. Allergen: beef, gluten, soy Origin: Brazil EU spec — verify SG pack

Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Original — flagged US list

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts (secondary, countries: United States) — NOT an SG pack list): Beef, water, sugar, salt, less than 2% soy sauce [(wheat, soybeans, salt), maltodextrin], flavorings, hydrolyzed corn protein, yeast extract, citric acid. Allergens: Beef, Gluten, Soybeans.

A second US entry gives a slightly different form (beef, seasoning (sugar, salt, yeast extract, onion powder, garlic powder, flavourings, spice), soy protein, natural flavours, smoke flavour) — the US lists themselves vary by pack size and date, which is why the SG pack must settle the list. Panelled here as the US reference list, separate from the EU specification above. US list — verify SG pack Allergen: beef, gluten, soy

Jack Link's Beef Jerky — Sweet & Hot — flagged US listing

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts (secondary, countries: United States) — NOT an SG pack list): Beef, water, sugar, brown sugar, contains 2% or less of flavors, salt, beef stock, yeast extract, citric acid, pineapple powder. Allergens: Beef.

Sugar and brown sugar are both listed — the "sweet" in Sweet & Hot. No soy sauce is listed in this entry, unlike the Original. Flagged: US listing, not an SG pack list. US list — verify SG pack Added sugar: sugar, brown sugar

Simms Original Beef Jerky — flagged US listing

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts (secondary, countries: United States) — NOT an SG pack list): Beef, brown sugar, beef broth, salt, natural flavors, vinegar, hydrolyzed soy protein, sodium erythorbate, citric acid, paprika oleoresin, sodium nitrite. Contains soy. Allergens: Beef, Soybeans.

Simms is the Aldi house-brand jerky, sold in Singapore through parallel-import channels. Brown sugar is second and beef broth is third — a different order from Jack Link's. Sodium nitrite is listed directly here (not as part of a curing-salt entry). Flagged: US listing, not an SG pack list, and SG availability is via parallel import, not a local distributor. US list — verify SG pack Allergen: beef, soy

Ken Ken Whole Piece Cuttlefish Snack

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Shopee Singapore — Ken Ken Official Store listing): Cuttlefish (Sepia Spp)(93.70%), Sugar, Sorbitol, Chilli Sauce (Chilli, Tomato, Sorbic Acid), Fish Sauce (Anchovies, Sorbic Acid), Citric Acid, Salt, Pepper, Permitted Flavour Enhancer (E621 Monosodium Glutamate), Aspartame, Permitted Food Colouring (E110, E102). Phenylketuronics: Contains Phenylalanine. Ready to eat.

Ken Ken prepared cuttlefish has been sold in Singapore since the 1970s, marketed as the "chewing gum of the Orientals" (Wikipedia, Atlas Obscura) and still available in all major supermarkets here. Halal certified, per the official-store listing. Aspartame is listed with its phenylalanine warning, quoted as printed (including the listing's spelling "Phenylketuronics"). Cuttlefish 93.70% Allergen: fish (anchovies), mollusc Via: Shopee SG official store

Fragrance Grilled Cuttlefish Slices — pack-photo list (secondary)

Pack size: not stated · Made in: Singapore (as printed)

Ingredients (Social-media photograph of the SG pack (secondary) — NOT a retrieved retailer ingredient section): Cuttlefish, sugar, palm oil, chilli powder. (Nutrition per 100 g was visible in the photo but not legibly transcribed, so no nutrition figure is tabled.)

Four ingredients — the shortest dried-seafood list on this page. Panelled as a pack-photo list because no retailer ingredient section was retrieved; the pack should be re-photographed legibly before publish to confirm the order and to capture the nutrition panel. Origin: Singapore Pack-photo list — re-verify

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked

Country Archer / Old Trapper / other US jerky brands — Sold in Singapore through parallel-import channels; no SG pack lists retrieved in this pass.
Bee Cheng Hiang dried cuttlefish / squid snacks — Sold in Singapore; no SG ingredient section retrieved in this pass.
Singlong dried squid / cuttlefish snacks — Sold in Singapore; no SG ingredient section retrieved in this pass.
Dried shredded squid — other Singapore brands (e.g. Pon Pon successors, mama-shop brands) — The dried-shredded-squid tradition is well documented (Ken Ken is the main surviving brand); other brands' lists were not retrieved.
Bak kwa / pork jerky (incl. Fragrance, Bee Cheng Hiang bak kwa) — A different product (barbecued pork slices, not dried jerky) — out of scope for this page, noted so it is not mistaken for a missing jerky row.
Dried anchovies / ikan bilis and dried seafood for cooking — Cooking ingredients, covered on the dried seafood page (category 138) — out of scope here, which is snack packs only.
Giant, Sheng Siong, Don Don Donki, Mustafa, Meidi-Ya, Le Petit Depot, Cold Storage, RedMart, Lazada and Shopee ranges — Checked only through the Shopee listings and search results above in this pass; their full jerky/dried-seafood snack shelves were not paginated in full. Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All figures in the table are as sold, per 100 g or per 100 ml unless the Basis column says otherwise. Click a column header to sort low to high; click again for high to low. Rows marked "not stated" always sort last — a dash is missing data, not zero. Per-serving-only figures are in a separate table below and are never sorted against per-100 figures, and are never converted to per-100 by guessing.

Salt and sodium: salt = sodium × 2.5. The table shows sodium as printed (in mg) with the salt equivalent in brackets. Sodium is not presented as salt, and salt is not presented as sodium. Where a source printed salt only, the sodium figure is the arithmetic conversion (salt ÷ 2.5) and is flagged as converted.

Total vs added sugars: most Singapore packs list total sugars, not added sugars. A total-sugars figure is never labelled here as "added sugar". Where a source states an added-sugars figure separately, it is noted. The ingredient list remains the evidence for added sugar (sugar, sucrose, glucose syrup) versus naturally occurring sugars.

Open Food Facts is a community database and is flagged as secondary where used: the pack and the retailer nutrition section take precedence if they disagree. Figures marked "not stated" were not in the source retrieved; they are not estimated, borrowed from another variant, or copied across flavours.

No per-100 g/ml nutrition panel was verified in this pass for any panelled product, so there is no sortable nutrition table on this page yet. The ingredient panels are the comparison for this pass; figures are not estimated here.

Seen but not verified (nutrition): no per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for any panelled jerky or dried seafood snack. The Fragrance pack photo showed a per-100 g nutrition panel that was not legibly transcribed, so no figure is tabled from it. Their ingredient panels are unchanged; no figure is estimated here.

How to read a jerky or dried seafood snack label — the jargon, in plain English

Jerky: Meat (here beef) marinated, smoked and dried. The list is the marinade: sugar, salt, soy sauce, yeast extract, spices, smoke flavouring, curing salt.
Curing salt / sodium nitrite: Salt plus sodium nitrite, used to cure meat and keep its colour and safety. Listed as "curing salt (salt, preservative (sodium nitrite))" in the EU Jack Link's list and directly as "sodium nitrite" in the Simms list.
Prepared cuttlefish: Cuttlefish cooked, cooled, grated/shredded and seasoned, then dried — the Singapore snack tradition. Ken Ken's version is 93.70% cuttlefish with sugar, sorbitol and chilli/fish sauce seasoning.
Sorbitol: A sugar alcohol used as a sweetener and humectant (keeps the cuttlefish chewy). It is in the Ken Ken list after sugar.
E621 (monosodium glutamate / MSG): A flavour enhancer. Listed in the Ken Ken cuttlefish as "permitted flavour enhancer (E621 monosodium glutamate)".
E110 (sunset yellow) / E102 (tartrazine): Synthetic food colourings. Both are listed in the Ken Ken cuttlefish; E102 is also in the RedMan Custard Powder on the custard page.
Aspartame / phenylalanine: A non-nutritive sweetener that is a source of phenylalanine — the Ken Ken list carries the warning "Phenylketuronics: Contains Phenylalanine" (spelling as printed), which matters for people with phenylketonuria (PKU).
Smoke flavouring / wood smoke: Flavouring that gives a smoky taste without smoking the meat. The EU Jack Link's list ends with "wood smoke"; the US list uses "smoke flavour".

What this page is not

Not a health score, and not a "best" pick. The groups on this page are different products, and this page does not rank them.
Not a taste test, and not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
Not complete. The products in seen-but-not-verified are not yet panelled, for the verification reasons given, not hidden. No page claims 100% completeness.

Sources and method

Checked 12 November 2026 from: Jack Link's EU customer specification (LSI Germany, 17 March 2025) and Open Food Facts EU/US entries (Jack Link's Original EU and US, Sweet & Hot US, Simms Original US — all flagged); Shopee Singapore Ken Ken Official Store listings (Whole Piece Cuttlefish Snack 15 g and 35 g — ingredient list retrieved); social-media photograph of the Fragrance Grilled Cuttlefish Slices SG pack (secondary — list transcribed from the photo); Wikipedia and Atlas Obscura on dried shredded squid / Ken Ken history (context only — no lists taken from them). Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Where a full pack list could not be verified, the product is in seen-but-not-verified instead of being panelled.