BURST
Tinned fish has found an all-new fanbase. Searches for “sardines breakfast” and “tinned fish charcuterie boards” are through the roof . Thanks to TikTok, sardines have become a gateway, helping cans shake their utilitarian image. According to producers, purveyors and industry specialists, sales are booming, and the trend shows no sign of slowing.
Drawn to tinned fish’s aesthetic, nutrition, skincare benefits, ease and versatility — and, it must be said, high protein content — a younger generation is giving the centuries-old foodstuff a fresh look.
“Typically, it was always, ‘Oh, my grandfather ate sardines.’ Fortunately for us, there were always new grandfathers coming along,” says Phil LeBlanc, owner of IMO Foods , a cannery on Nova Scotia’s Yarmouth waterfront. “We’ve got both markets now — the older and younger. So we didn’t lose the older market, I don’t think. Maybe they’re not watching TikTok, but they’re still buying product.”
IMO Foods started canning wild-caught fish from the Bay of Fundy in 1968, producing tins for their own brand, Kersen , and various others worldwide. They’ve seen double-digit growth since tinned fish took over social media.
“Once people realize, ‘Hey, this is a great staple to have in my cupboard,’ I think it’s going to continue forever,” says LeBlanc.
At Toronto’s Good Cheese , owner and operator Luke Champion had a feeling that tinned fish’s time would come. He was impressed by the quality, but distributors were hard to come by when the shop opened in the late 2010s. “I was like, ‘I want to have the best selection anywhere,’ so I just went all in right away, and whatever I could find, I’d try and bring in.”
Today, Good Cheese stocks a wide range of cans from countries including heavy hitters Spain and Portugal, as well as homegrown producers, such as Chasse-Marée in Rimouski, Que.
Demand has “exploded” in the last year or two, says Champion. “It’s just flying off the shelves. We’re shipping it to every province and territory” — including Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Tinned fish now comprises roughly one-third of the business — on equal footing with cheese and wine.
Sardines in olive oil are the top-seller, but Champion notes that tastes are expanding. Customers are snapping up a richer array of seafood, such as barnacles and sea cucumber. There’s also a wider variety of seasonings, such as salsa verde, moqueca and curry sauce .
Recognizing the growing interest but also hesitation about unfamiliar products inspired an upcoming Conservas Club — a monthly food subscription aimed at discovery. “Often, there’s a barrier to entry when people are discovering something new,” says Champion. “People feel like they don’t know what they want to try. They don’t know what’s good, and so we wanted to introduce a curated club to help people get over that initial kind of unsureness and introduce people to this line of product that we think is really, really great.”
Champion credits the rise of tinned fish to a few factors, including satisfying a desire for protein in one handy, high-quality package. While in the past, LeBlanc says they considered heart-healthy omega-3s the selling point, today, it’s all about protein. With 20 grams per 100 grams of drained sardines, for instance, tinned fish can be an affordable source.
The trend is also rooted in a return to “real food” and the concept of skincare from the inside out, says Jo-Ann McArthur, president of Nourish Food Marketing . With “Sardine Girl Summer” now in its second year, expressing itself in everything from silvery nails to fish-shaped clutches, “eating your skincare” is big on TikTok. Oily fish, such as sardines and mackerel, “seems to be a tasty way of bypassing the pill supplements.”
As with many other food trends, McArthur says the premiumization of tinned fish in Canada started in fine dining. The modern charcuterie trend gave way to sea-cuterie boards, and tinned fish adopted a fashion aesthetic.
Chef Grant van Gameren brought attention to conservas (high-quality tinned seafood from Spain and Portugal) at the Spanish restaurant Bar Isabel , which opened in Toronto in 2013, and sister spot Bar Raval , a Barcelona-inspired pintxos bar founded two years later.
Companies such as Los Angeles-based Fishwife and Scout , both of which entered the market in 2020, helped further transform it. Chef Charlotte Langley, a Prince Edward Islander based in Prince Edward County, Ont., conceived of Scout in 2014, “and now she’s taken it, I think, a step further with her very cheeky, Nice Cans branding,” says McArthur.
Plus, more Canadians are travelling to Portugal than ever before. There, tinned fish shops are a sight to behold, adds McArthur. “They’re absolutely like little jewel boxes.”
Tinned fish cans are often colourful and collectible. Some companies hire artists to illustrate limited-edition releases, which helps create excitement, says Champion. Part of what’s fuelling the explosion of tins “is the sort of Pokemon-esque-ness of it,” he adds. “This kind of ‘gotta catch ’em all’ thing, where people want to try all the different varieties of fish and seafood out there.”
Nice Cans’ vibrant packaging was inspired by European conservas culture, says Langley, founder and CEO. “We’re getting a taste of this beautiful packaging and this lifestyle.” After launching in Canada in April 2025, Nice Cans expanded to Australia, Mexico, the United States and the U.K.
Langley calls sardines “a gateway fish to new experiences,” and notes that it took “an intense amount of marketing and education” on the part of Fishwife, Scout (which she’s since exited) and a few others to turn them into the sought-after product they are today. Nice Cans started with three types of sardines because Langley recognized their conversion potential. “It’s going to grab the most attention, be the most dramatic, and be perfectly timed to encourage people to have more diversification in their diet.”
She appreciates the creativity surfacing with tinned fish, and jokes that it’s “can-venient” cuisine. “People are looking for convenience that provides what they need for their bodies and what makes them feel good. It’s as simple as that, I think.”
Tips for building a sea-cuterie board
“Complement and contrast your flavours and textures,” says Luke Champion of Good Cheese, adding that variety is key. Choose two or three different cans to build your board around and add textural elements. Champion likes a crunchy potato chip and a crusty baguette. For a hit of acid, which “plays nicely with the richness of the oil and fish,” try lemon wedges, cornichons, briny olives or capers.
Charlotte Langley of Nice Cans also goes all in on texture, whether it’s chips or cucumbers — and especially when serving sardines. “Add a bunch of crunchy stuff because sardines are quite soft and luscious and unctuous and all the nice things.”
Champion also recommends adding some soft cheeses. “I really like fresh goat’s cheese with seafood. It works really well. Maybe it’s a Triple-Crème de Charlevoix, which is a triple cream brie from Quebec, and manchego is a pretty classic pairing as well,” he says. “You could add some serrano ham or prosciutto, and you’re pretty good to go.”
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