Dried bonito (katsuobushi) and dried sardines かつお節などの節・煮干し

How it appears on labels

Labeling rules

• Under the definitions in the Food Labeling Standards (Appended Table 3), “ふし” (fushi) is fish that has been simmered to set the protein and then smoke-dried until the water content is 26% or less (for bonito and tuna, after removing the head, innards, and so on). “煮干し” (niboshi) is fish that has been simmered to set the protein and then dried without smoking.
• Fushi (for bonito, with the surface shaved off) that has had a second or later mold coating applied is “かれぶし” (karebushi) (also in Appended Table 3).
• For “かつお削りぶし” (shaved bonito flakes), the place where the bonito fushi was made must be written as “国内製造” (made in Japan) or “○○製造” (made in ○○) (Food Labeling Standards Article 3 and Appended Table 15). “国内製造” is the place where it was processed into fushi, not where the bonito was caught.
• The name of shaved flakes is written as “○○削りぶし” (shaved ○○ flakes), such as “かつお削りぶし”, if they are shaved from the fushi, niboshi, and so on of one kind of fish. It is “○○かれぶし削りぶし” (shaved ○○ karebushi flakes) if they are only karebushi of one kind of fish, and “混合削りぶし” (mixed shaved flakes) if two or more kinds of fish are used (Appended Table 4).
• Fushi types (such as katsuobushi), dried small fish, kombu, dried shiitake, and similar ingredients used for flavor seasonings (dashi stock granules) are called “風味原料” (flavor ingredients) when they are a “powder, extract, or concentrated extract” (Appended Table 3). “かつお節粉末” (bonito flake powder) is written for a powder of fushi, and “濃縮かつおぶしだし” (concentrated bonito dashi) for a concentrated extract of fushi.

Good to know

• Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight, so the fushi at the front is the most used ingredient in that dashi pack.
• In the food composition table, katsuobushi has 77.1 g of protein per 100 g and 0.3 g of salt equivalent. Dried Japanese anchovy (niboshi) has 4.3 g of salt equivalent.
• Even for the same bonito flakes, the label shows how they are used. Among the products on this site, the dashi miso (Marukome Ryotei no Aji) says “かつお節粉末” (bonito flake powder), and the noodle soup base (Mizkan Oigatsuo Tsuyu, 2x concentrate) says “かつおぶし（粗砕、粉砕）” (bonito flakes (coarsely crushed, ground)) and “濃縮かつおぶしだし” (concentrated bonito dashi). The label does not say how concentrated the “濃縮かつおぶしだし” is.
• Items written with “エキス” (extract), such as “かつおエキス” (bonito extract) and “こんぶエキス” (kombu extract), are explained on the “Meat extract, seafood extract, etc.” page in this dictionary.
• Among the products on this site, these are in three dashi pack products, as well as in ponzu, white dashi, noodle soup base, furikake (rice seasoning), yakisoba sauce, and dashi miso.

Food composition data

Per 100 g of the edible portion. Source: MEXT, Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement).

Products on this site that contain it

Product pages are in Japanese for now; each one reads every ingredient on the label.

Related pages

• Article: Umami seasonings and “化学調味料無添加” (no chemical seasonings)
• Article: Monosodium glutamate (umami seasoning)
• Ingredient: Kombu (kelp)
• Ingredient: Meat extract, seafood extract, etc. (○○ extract)
• Ingredient: Miso (dashi miso)
• Products on this site: Seasonings

Sources

• Food Labeling Standards (Cabinet Office Ordinance No. 10 of 2015) — e-Gov Japanese Law Search
• Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement) — MEXT

Sources are in Japanese unless noted otherwise. This page is a translation of our Japanese page; if they differ, the Japanese page is the reference.

Other ingredients in this group

• Yeast extract
• Meat / seafood / vegetable extracts
• Kombu (kelp)
• Shiitake mushroom
• Acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein (amino acid liquid)
• Dried shrimp
• Nori (seaweed)