Where are the sardines? The humble little fish, once a plentiful, budget-friendly staple in your grandpa’s pantry, can sometimes be hard to find.
Sardines have become so celebrated by wellness influencers on TikTok that demand has skyrocketed, causing the oily nutritional powerhouses to go missing from grocery shelves.
Becca Millstein, the CEO and co-founder of Fishwife, a hip Los Angeles-based tinned seafood company that launched in 2020, said the sardine supply chain is “tight” for multiple reasons.
Warmer ocean temperatures in the mid-Atlantic are causing sardines to “migrate to deeper, cooler waters that are outside the typical range of commercial fishing nets,” Millstein said via email.
Ocean temperatures also contribute to fluctuations in the growth of sardines’ favorite food source: phytoplankton. The fish aren’t growing as big as they should and reproduction rates are down, a 2025 study by marine researchers at the University of Barcelona found.
A decline in catches in Morocco, the world’s leading exporter of canned sardines, eventually led the country to ban exports early this year to prioritize its domestic supply, according to Reuters. The ban cut off the supply to canneries in Spain and Portugal, which, along with Morocco, manufacture many canned sardines sold in the United States.
“Because the global market relies heavily on those specific exports, the industry felt the impact very quickly,” said Millstein.
TikTok wellness influencers began touting sardines as a cheap, nutrient-dense, shelf-stable food during the early days of the Covid pandemic. Then Gen Zers and millennials embraced the unglamorous pantry staple of our grandparents with viral #sardinegirldinner videos, leading up to this year’s #sardinemaxxing trend.
No wonder tinned sardine lovers are griping on Reddit about their favorite brands vanishing from grocers’ shelves. Some report shelling out more money than usual upon discovering the brands back in stock.
Sardines are high in protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B12 and essential minerals like phosphorus and selenium. Because they’re eaten soft bones and all, they are also rich sources of calcium and vitamin D.
“The long-chain omega-3s, EPA and DHA, which are in fatty fish, have been shown to have potential benefits for a range of tissues and organs,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and the director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.
National grocery chains say they’re trying to keep the sardines in stock.
“Like the rest of the industry, we’ve seen shifts in sardine availability alongside growing consumer interest,” said AnaMaria Friede, the grocery director at Whole Foods Market. “Our sourcing team has been proactively partnering with suppliers to secure inventory, and we’re confident customers will see strong availability heading into fall.”
Maria Brous, the director of communications at Publix Super Markets, said the availability of tinned sardines, as with other seafood products, is “influenced by a variety of factors” that include “fishing regulations, environmental conditions, import volumes and overall market trends.”
Amanda Chen, the senior brand manager for tinned seafood company King Oscar, said its inventory squeeze is due to consumer demand, not fewer fish. The brand, founded in 1902, is beloved by the #sardinecore set and sources seafood from Morocco — but not its signature Norwegian brisling sardines.
Those smaller sardines are “wild caught in pristine, icy Nordic and Baltic waters, just as we’ve been doing for the last 124 years,” Chen said in an email.
“We have seen category consumption growth in the range of 25% to 50% year over year across the various types of products. It is causing industry-wide constraints, mostly related to operational capacity and the timing of the fishing seasons rather than the fish supply itself,” Chen said.
Beyond Morocco, sardines are caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of northern Spain, the Baltic Sea and Sweden’s North Atlantic coast.
The good news is the situation is expected to get better.
King Oscar is “working hard” to improve its inventory “as quickly as possible so consumers can find their favorite sardines once again,” said Chen.
“We expect to fully recover in 2027,” Chen added.
Millstein at Fishwife said her company will continue working with a “rotating portfolio of sustainable fisheries across different hemispheres” and multiple canneries in an effort to navigate environmental shifts and build long-term resilience in its supply chain.
Millstein said she’s optimistic about the future of the fish.
“A temporary shortage of fish on the market is often evidence that sustainability guardrails, like strict scientific quotas, are functioning exactly as intended to prevent long-term depletion.”
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