Sardines Overtake Salmon in the United States, Morocco Could Reap the Benefits

Long confined to cupboards, canned fish has become a trendy product in the United States. Restaurants, specialty grocery stores and social media are contributing to this enthusiasm, particularly among young consumers seeking protein-rich foods.

According to a survey published by Fortune, U.S. sales of canned fish rose from $2.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2.7 billion. Over the past twelve months, American consumers spent $3.52 billion on all shelf-stable seafood products.

Sardines are benefiting particularly from this phenomenon. They have now overtaken salmon to become the second-most popular canned fish in the United States, behind tuna.

The phenomenon is also evident in online orders. Grubhub’s 2025 review shows that orders for canned fish tripled in one year. Purchases made at grocery stores through the platform even jumped by 209%.

Morocco has precisely a canned sardine industry that enables it to ship its products to the most distant markets.

On Bladi.net : France Sardine Shortage: Morocco Export Ban Sparks Supply Crisis

For Moroccan canneries, the U.S. market therefore represents a particularly attractive opportunity. Unlike frozen sardines, whose exports Morocco suspended to preserve domestic market supplies, processed and canned sardines can continue to be exported.

This particularity had already enabled canneries operating in Morocco to continue serving their foreign customers despite the restrictions imposed by Rabat. In France, several industrial companies had thus adapted their supply chains by prioritizing processing directly in Morocco.

The American success comes at the wrong time

However, this new demand comes as Morocco’s resource is becoming scarcer. Fortune notes that sardine landings in Morocco fell by nearly 46% between 2022 and 2024.

They declined from approximately 966,000 tonnes in 2022 to nearly 525,000 tonnes two years later. Warming waters are notably being blamed: sardine schools are moving toward cooler areas, forcing fishermen to travel farther from the coast.

This decline in catches had prompted Morocco to suspend frozen sardine exports starting in February 2026, in order to prioritize the domestic market and the local processing industry.

On Bladi.net : Moroccan Sardines Spain Export Suspension Negotiations

This availability problem is now compounded by the cost of fishing. Rashid Sumaila, a fisheries economics specialist at the University of British Columbia interviewed by Fortune, believes that rising energy costs linked to international tensions are increasing the cost of trips at sea just as boats must travel farther to find sardine schools.

The structure of Moroccan exports has already changed profoundly. Sardines accounted for only 23% of frozen small pelagic exports in 2025, compared with around 70% in 2020. Morocco is simultaneously seeking to promote processed products, which generate more value than fish sold raw.

This strategy could particularly suit the new American trend. The global canned fish market, valued at approximately $10.2 billion in 2024, could approach $18 billion by 2034.

Morocco thus finds itself in a paradoxical situation: canned sardines have never seemed so attractive on the U.S. market, but this demand is arriving precisely as its catches are declining sharply. For Moroccan canneries, the challenge will therefore be to capitalize on this new clientele without increasing pressure on a resource that has become scarcer.