Portuguese Sardines, Canned Fish Gentrification & The Vilification of “Unskilled” Labour

Or what I learned touring a sardine cannery last week

Image courtesy of author

20 minutes from my home is a 105-year-old sardine cannery called Pinhais. It’s considered one of the best quality canneries in Portugal.

100 women (and 12 men) work the factory floor, packing 25,000 cans a day of sardines and other fish.

I recently visited the factory to learn more about Portugal’s canned fish culture. As expected, I came away with better knowledge of how fish is canned.

But I also came away with more than that.

I came away thinking about the recent gentrification or “yassification” of canned fish and the small-washing (the practice of branding large-scale food as small and artisanal) that comes with it.

I came away thinking about how important food companies are when they butt up against our modern-day preoccupation of squeezing every cent out of business, when they should be more preoccupied with preserving quality.

I came away thinking about how easy it is to dismiss factory workers as unskilled labour when these women of industry are anything but.