The Next Big Thing in Tinned Fish? Chocolate Sardines

Long sold as a cheeky gift in European candy shops, chocolate sardines are making their way stateside (and making a splash)

No one could have predicted that the mid-2020s would prove to be such a renaissance for sardine lovers. Since the pandemic, tinned fish has fully cemented its reputation as “hot girl food,” with the once-humble sardine leading the pack, popping up in shoppy shops, on trucker hats, and likely, all over your FYP. And now, the modern tinned fish revival has surfaced a classic confection with a twist: chocolate sardines. Don’t worry, they’re not chocolate-covered fish—these are dark or milk chocolate molded to resemble wee fishes packed in metal or cardboard tins, and they’re the next chapter in the sardine trend’s riveting memoir.

Chocolate sardines first appeared in Europe around the turn of the 20th century, with small patisseries and candy shops selling their own versions. They were a cheeky take on tinned sardines, then peaking in popularity thanks to shifting food needs during World War I and World War II. Tinned sardines first hit the scene in early 19th-century Europe, inspired by the wartime need for storing and transporting foods for long periods of time, and took off in France, Spain, and especially Portugal, where sardine-packing became a way of life.

Spanish chocolatier Simon Coll, established in 1840, is credited with selling the first chocolate sardines on a wide scale in the 1970s, and Michel Cluizel, a French chocolatier, began producing chocolate sardines over 30 years ago as a souvenir for tourists visiting Brittany. The confections were a popular gift for children in Portugal, Spain, and France, where they were often tucked into Christmas stockings or given as gifts around Easter. And in France, Belgium, and Italy, chocolate fish are a common gag gift around April Fool’s Day, or poisson d’avril en francais. Now, they’ve arrived stateside, with Michel Cluizel’s chocolate sardines appearing at trendy Brooklyn jewelry shop Catbird, and brands like Fishwife and Bixby Chocolate releasing their takes on the clever treats.

Kate McAleer, the owner of Bixby Chocolate in Rockland, Maine, wanted to pay homage to her state’s history of tinned fish canning in her medium of choice: chocolate. McAleer started toying with the idea of producing a bean-to-’dine chocolate sardine after seeing the popularity of Bixby’s take on another local confection called Maine Needham (a potato candy made with Maine Potatoes and Coconut). “Our Needhams were so popular, I kept thinking about the idea of the Maine sardine,” McAleer shared in an email.

North America exported French sardines for most of the 19th century, but in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War put the brakes on that, creating an opportunity for commercial sardine canning in the US. The tindustry (so to speak) caught on in the US a big way in Maine in the 1870s, and, according to sardine scholar Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s Deli, “at its height, nearly every town along Maine’s coast had a small sardine factory—over 400 total when the industry was at its peak.” Dubbed by Weinzweig as, ‘the ramen of the middle 20th century’ for its affordable ubiquity, interest in tinned fish began to wane in the 1960s and 70s, and the industry steadily declined in the US, with Maine’s last cannery, Stinson Seafood in Prospect Harbor, shuttering in the spring of 2010.

McAleer, who grew up listening to her parents’ and grandparents’ sardine stories (like fish tales, but smaller), dug in on the research and discovered that Bixby is located in a former ice house used for fishing vessels right in the heart of what was once cannery row on Tilson Avenue, where the chocolatier’s great-grandfather worked in a sardine factory. In a loop-closing move, McAleer worked with one of Maine’s last sardine canning factories to create the seam on Bixby’s chocolate fish tins. At an event at Allagash Brewery last summer, McAleer was introduced to Fishwife CEO and co-owner Becca Millstein and the two sardine-lovers soon began working on the Fishwife x Bixby collab.

It was a serendipitous connection for McAleer and Milstein, who debuted their hand-packed, dark chocolate sardines on Instagram last week. “These delicious, charming novelty treats became popular in countries that had strong histories of both chocolate-making and seafood canning, which is just such a fun area of overlap,” Millstein told me via email.

Olivia Wilson, a Richmond, Virginia-based baker and artist, introduced her gianduja fish in 2023, selling the small tins at pop-ups around Richmond, VA. Created as an ode to Italian Giandotto chocolates, Wilson uses homemade candied hazelnuts and a pinch of sea salt in each handmade batch.

In her search for something that would be a good fit for holiday markets, Wilson researched chocolate fish around the world, and seeing a lack of them in her local market, she went to work on her own version, collaborating with her husband, Danny Reidy, on the label. Wilson captured the iridescence of fish scales with a dusting of edible rose gold luster dust on her Gianduja Fish.

“As a one-person business, I am constantly trying to set myself apart and give folks a reason to come out to the next maker’s market,” says Wilson. “I’m sourcing the best Piemonte hazelnuts I can find, using ethically sourced chocolate and really good sea salt made in Virginia. My fish have a smooth almost truffle-like consistency, but I also include tiny crunchy bits made from candied hazlenuts—gotta have a little ‘cronch.’”

One thing is clear: chocolate sardines are having a big moment (within tinned fish’s already huge moment). If you missed the Bixby collaboration available exclusively in Fishwife’s currently sold out (sorry!) Valentine’s Day Gift Pack, there are plenty of other (chocolate) fish in the sea.