‘Tinned Fish 3.0’: BELA Evolves For the Modern Age
Several decades before tinned fish became trendy, Joshua Scherz landed an opportunity to launch a premium take on the pantry staple for the U.S. market. In 1997, the New England native and U.S. Air Force veteran, along with his mother, partnered with a Portuguese factory to create BELA, a sustainably sourced, heritage-inspired brand of canned seafood.
After 28 years on grocery store shelves, and ahead of expanding its product line later this year, BELA this week unveiled its first-ever brand refresh along with a revamped website that enables consumers to order directly from the company.
According to Scherz, these moves signal the beginning of “Tinned Fish 3.0.”
BELA markets a line of Portuguese-style codfish, mackerel and sardines wild-caught in non-industrial European waters, then packed by family-owned canneries in Portugal. The products are sold in more than 5,000 retail outlets across the country, including Kroger, Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market and others. A few months ago, the brand began selling on Amazon.com.
“BELA has been a retail-shelf-native brand for 28 years, built for the grocery aisle long before
ecommerce reshaped how people shop for food… But in recent years, our focus has been on managing significant growth and navigating increasingly complex logistics, which meant we largely sat out the rise of Tinned Fish 2.0,” said Scherz, founder and CEO of BELA.
He noted the biggest industry shift during the brand’s lifespan was the post-pandemic emergence of tinned fish as a premium product, led by up-and-comers such as Fishwife, Scout, Patagonia Provisions and others that have helped push the category to more than $2.7 billion in sales in 2023.
“Before the pandemic, it was just canned seafood, a simple pantry staple. Now, brands are leaning into exclusivity and high-end collaborations,” Scherz said.
BELA has always focused on quality, tradition and transparency, he emphasized, noting that the brand never uses overpowering flavors or sauces but rather takes a “fish forward” approach.
“We’ve built trust over decades by sourcing from small, sustainable fishing communities and using traditional hand-packing methods that honor the Portuguese conservas method,” he said.
Additionally, he noted, BELA was the first brand in the U.S. market to pack sardines in organic extra virgin olive oil – “a bold move at the time” – and it pioneered “an industry-first lithograph six-color process can” that set a new standard for design in canned seafood.
The brand refresh – which features a bold font and bright blue hue – brings the brand in line with the splashy graphics and vibrant packaging seen in today’s canned seafood set, while “honoring our history, embracing and future and sharing our values,” Scherz said. A new tagline, “Everyone is Welcome to the Table,” reinforces the company’s mission to make tinned fish more accessible and inclusive, he added.
“Now that the category has evolved and the dust has settled, we saw the perfect opportunity to once again lead the charge into Tinned Fish 3.0,” Scherz said.
