SAN FRANCISCO — Sardines swirling in maintained lemons. Mackerel basking in curry sauce. Chargrilled squid bathing in ink. All are cooking specials long popular in Europe that are now making their mark on U.S. menus.
The nation’s canned seafood market is moving well beyond tuna sandwiches, a pandemic-era pattern that started with Americans in lockdown requiring more of their cabinet staples.
Since then, the U.S. market has just broadened, sustained by social media influencers promoting the advantages of the high-powered protein food in brilliantly colored metal containers. On the TikTok channel Tinned — Fishionado, Kris Wilson posts dishes for fast meals, consistingof one blending remaining rice, soy sauce, avocado and a runny egg with a tin of smoked mussels from the Danish business Fangst.
Tinned fish, as it’s called in Europe, is now a routine offering on menus at redwine bars from San Francisco to Houston to New York, where customers scoop the contents straight out of the can. There are even tinned fish clubs that simulate whitewine clubs by sendingout members regularmonthly deliveries of different seafood jam-packed in different mixes of spices, oils and sauces. Videos on tinned fish, from tastings to how-to ideas on cleansing the fishy odor from cans, haveactually created more than 30 million views on TikTok.
U.S. canned seafood market sales haveactually grown from $2.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2.7 billion so far this year, according to market researchstudy company Circana.
Becca Millstein opened a Los Angeles-based tinned fish organization in 2020 after consuming more of it throughout coronavirus lockdowns.
“When we were all quarantining at home, preparing 100% of our meals day in and day out, it was really time consuming to produce satisfying meals,” she stated. “I simply discovered myself consuming so much canned fish, and at the exactsame time, the alternatives that I discovered when walking up and down the aisles of my regional grocery shop simply were not terrific.”
Millstein lived in Spain in college and invested time in Portugal, both nations where tinned fish has long been a part of individuals’s dietplans, so she understood there were muchbetter choices to be had.
“I was consuming the exactsame canned fish that my excellent grandma Rose in Brooklyn was consuming in the 1930s,” she stated. “I idea that was simply crazy.”
Her business, Fishwife Tinned Seafood Co., set out to deal topquality, sustainably sourced seafood.
Millstein stated she lookedfor out canneries in Spain and Portugal and gottenintouchwith fishers along the West Coast who linked her to canneries in Oregon and Washington.
“Our objective is truly to simply galvanize the canned fish market and change and make it what we believe it can be,” Millstein stated, including that implies offering much mo