2024 Event Trends: Edible Ink is Everywhere
When your Instagram feed is curated to prioritize event vendors and marketers—from caterers, to balloon artists, to florists and production designers—it’s hard not to marvel at the evolution of party planning and how elaborate and sophisticated it’s become. We now live in a world where one year olds have giant balloon sculptures pouring off themed custom builds wheres thirty years ago, the typical kid’s birthday pin the tail on the donkey.
Food, of course, has really been elevated to an experiential art with top chefs like Ferran Adrià, Alain Ducasse, and Daniel Humm turning to chemistry, unique ingredients, and over-the-top presentation to cultivate Michelin star reviews and year long wait lists. In the pastry arena, cakes have reached new heights (no pun intended) with multi-layer arrangements decorated with stunning fondant figurines and sculptural piping.
One of the latest trends that’s gaining momentum this year is the integration of edible ink into catering and pastry to create even more personalization for event attendees. Edible ink, edible printers, edible airbrushes, edible paper…all work together to allow chefs and bakers to decorate food with photo-quality graphics and images. PRIMERA, INKEDIBLES, INK 4 CAKES, ICING IMAGES, and ICINGIKS are some of the bigger names at the forefront of providing direct to food printers, ink, and accessories.
What is in edible ink? You may ask. Squid ink has often been used to color pasta black, but in this case, water, food-grade glycerin (to help the ink move smoothly through the printer), preservatives citric acid and potassium sorbate, and polypropylene glycol (in small amounts that are Generally Recognized as Safe) along with FD&C approved food colorings round out this industrialized mixture which is then, in turn, used to print highly detailed images on food. Some brands have traces of soy and milk in them, but most are gluten and nut free, kosher, and FDA compliant. With the rise of concerns about health and sustainability, the demand for plant-based and environmentally friendly inks has risen.
Color cartridges comes in the CMYK spectrum similar to regular paper printing, and direct to food printers can print on all manner of food surfaces including but not limited to cakes, biscuits, chocolate, confetti cookies, macarons, marzipan, pastes, fondants, creams, foams, powdered sugar, and more.
There are two kinds of edible paper. Frosting sheets are made of corn starch and sugar and are both thick and surprisingly fragile. Because they are pure white, they are better for the vivid, bright colors of edible printer inks. Wafer paper, on the other hand, is incredibly sturdy. Mixed from potato starch and vegetable oil, wafer paper is translucent and great for edible airbrushing. Cut out cake toppers like butterflies, leaves, flowers, and geometric shapes tend to be made out of wafer paper and then cut with scissors or a die cut machine. Neither have any noticeable taste and are dairy, gluten and nut free and also FDA compliant.
While edible ink was patented by George Krubert of the Keebler Company in 1981, technological advancements have only recently made it available for mom and pop chefs to take the reins and run with the possibilities. Many caterers and event producers are now incorporating edible inks and other forms of branding such as logos and monograms into their event food presentations on everything from pastries to coffees to ice.
And of course, as food and food wares are responsible for over half the waste generated at events, you will always need people to come in during and after the festivities to clean everything up and create landfill diversion strategies. PopUP CleanUP specializes in event cleaning and sustainability. Reach out to us for all your event cleaning needs.
