Tinned fish is pegged to be one of 2024 trendiest foods, though it’s been around for ages. People have been canning fish for hundreds of years as a low-cost and effective way to preserve food, and in recent years, celebrities have made headlines for their sardine-laden diets.
Canned tuna is by far the most popular tinned fish, but sardines, mackerel, anchovies, mussels, lobster, and even octopus are the latest varieties of tinned fish to hit plates.
The canning process was invented during the Napoleonic wars. Fresh food was in short supply, particularly for those on military and naval expeditions, and so foods preserved in jars became essential sources of sustenance.
Later, during the second world war, tinned fish became a staple part of diets. For a long time this gave any food packed in aluminium or steel connotations of hardship.
But now tinned fish is back: on social media, on restaurant menus and in Gen Z’s cupboards. What changed?
Becca Millstein encountered artisanal tinned fish, such as pulpo en aceite de oliva (octopus in olive oil), while studying in Europe. Realising that American equivalents were "frozen in the 1960s", she co-founded Fishwife, a food company, in 2020. Stockists are popping up to meet gourmands’ demands.
The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine opened in Times Square in New York last summer. The shop offers more than 30 varieties of tinned fish, including eels and whelks.
Patrick Martinez founded The Tinned Fish Market, a British online-delivery business, in 2018: "I remember doing farmers’ markets and people getting upset because our sardines were £3 [$3.90]", over five times the cost of supermarket tins.
The pandemic changed an appreciation of food, as people had more time to indulge and experiment with unfamiliar flavours. Now high-end products are his company’s main draw. In America, too, sales of premium tinned fish—anything exceeding US$5 a tin - are growing at triple the rate of the broader market.
Branding is an important part of the revival. Ms Millstein credits much of Fishwife’s success to social media; the company targets Gen Z and millennial consumers online. Videos of influencers unboxing retro-looking tins are both fun and helpful. Many people do not know what to do with something like tinned sardines, and some worry about choking on the bones. Watching instructional videos makes it "less scary" for the uninitiated.
Tinned fish may be paving the way for cans’ comeback: there are more than 335 million posts on TikTok related to "Spam food". A new generation of consumers has peeled away unflattering assumptions about preserved foodstuffs and highlighted their convenience. Time to stock up.