Canned Tuna, Sardines & Mackerel

Canned fish is a shelf-stable container trade bought by the carton, and three products carry most of the volume in the markets CBIL works. Canned tuna (HS 1604.14) is skipjack and yellowfin in brine, oil or water, as solid, chunk or flake packs in 170 g, 185 g and 1.88 kg cans, to Codex CXS 70-1981; canned sardines (HS 1604.13) are Sardina pilchardus and sardine-type species such as Sardinella in the 125 g club can, to Codex CXS 94-1981, which reserves the plain name "sardines" for Sardina pilchardus; and canned mackerel (HS 1604.15) is the 425 g tin in tomato sauce that fills wholesale shelves across West Africa and the Middle East. All three are bought on species, packing medium, net and drained weight and histamine, with label claims - dolphin-safe, MSC, BPA-NI lining, halal - each backed by its own certificate. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations put HS 1604 as a whole at USD 18.7 billion and about 3.0 million MT across reporters, with canned tuna at USD 8.79 billion (Thailand USD 2.50 billion, Ecuador USD 1.41 billion, China USD 1.05 billion, Spain USD 797 million), canned sardines at USD 1.66 billion (Morocco USD 702 million and 162,809 MT, China USD 240 million) and canned mackerel at USD 0.79 billion (China USD 272 million and 129,938 MT, Morocco USD 115 million).

The buyers are importer-distributors, wholesalers and supermarket chains in West and Central Africa, the Gulf, North Africa and South Asia, buying in the cannery's brand or their own private label. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers canned tuna, sardines and mackerel from canneries in Thailand, Ecuador, the Philippines, Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, China, Mauritius, Seychelles, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire against the competent-authority health certificate, the cannery's certificate of analysis for histamine and drained weight, a certificate of origin, an EU catch certificate for EU-bound product and label compliance per destination. Cartons of 48 or 100 cans, or 24 x 425 g, move palletised or floor-loaded in 20-ft dry containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. The book is fish only - CBIL does not broker crab, lobster, oysters, other shellfish or molluscs - and every lot is species-declared and certifiable as halal by the destination's accepted certifier. Send the product, species, medium, can size, carton count, label and discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.