Rockfish tinned seafood on a table full of Christmas decorations

The perfect ready-wrapped christmas pressie?

As cold toes massage piles of presents at the end of the bed, nothing will put a big Christmas smile on a seafood lover's face than feeling the heavy jingle of a stocking full of aluminium tins.

Unexpected and practical, premium but still affordable, in our eyes, fancy tinned fish makes for the perfect small gift not just for Christmas, but any time of year.

A SHOW-STOPPER

Conservas as they’re called in Spain and Portugal – the art of preserving fish and shellfish in tins – are quite literally regarded as an art form. Boutique artisanal canneries use the freshest fish, and store them in quality olive oil, or vinaigrettes using recipes crafted over hundreds of years. Not like here in the UK where tinned fish is often seen as something to be sniffed at, reserved for soggy packed lunch sandwiches, or doomsday. On the continent, seafood in a tin is a celebrated way to store a wide variety of amazing fish species when they’re in peak season so that they can be enjoyed all year round.

PLANET FRIENDLY

Our Rockfish tinned seafood collection takes inspiration from these very canneries. Sourcing seafood from producers that we know and trust. Like our rope-grown mussels, which are produced here in Lyme Bay on giant ropes suspended in the sea. Farming mussels in this way produces more environmental good than a Tesla engineer could dream of in their whole lifetime. Proven to help purify the sea, remove CO2 from the atmosphere and create biodiverse habitats for a potpourri of marine life. They’re the perfect gift for anyone looking to do good with the food they eat.

INSTANT GRATIFICATION

We love our tinned fish because they’re easy. Creating dishes that are unusual, healthy, and delicious can be as simple as peeling back the lid of a tin. We love to serve our canned Mount’s Bay sardines on a piece of toast with capers and red onion, whilst our tins of Bonito tuna go perfectly in a Russian-style Olivier Salad. By gifting a tin of seafood, you’re giving the gift of a fancy appetiser, or on-the-hoof meal.

THEY LAST FOREVER

There’s a reason doomsday preppers love anything tinned. Our conservas have a fantastically long shelf life. Stocking up on a few of our gourmet tins of seafood means that you’ll always have a present in the larder ready to go for the office secret Santa, birthdays, and last-minute drinks party host gifts. Conservas make a great item to bring along to any party (just add a box of spelt crackers or a jar of olives) if you’re charged with bringing the pre-dinner snacks.

READY-WRAPPED

There’s a bit of an artsy culture around the European conservas. The tins always come gorgeously decorated in glorious, nostalgic designs. We’ve recreated this with our tins, as a way to celebrate the fish we catch here in the UK and inspire us to eat more variety! Not many Brits, for example, have had the pleasure of eating cuttlefish, a bountiful fish that grows in abundance here in the English Channel. Similar in taste and texture to a squid, but perhaps a little sweeter and a little thicker. Our tinned cuttlefish – or as we adoringly call it ‘Brixham Calamari’ – is marinaded in its own ink with tomatoes and herbs, a traditional European recipe, that gives the fish a delicate and delicious seaweedy tang. Our Brixham Calamari of course come in chic black boxes to match the delicious jet-black ink.

To make gifting even easier, we designed and developed a Tinned British Seafood gift pack, a selection from our range of tinned British fish which come in a handy gift box. This takes all the trouble out of choosing as it includes one tin of our Rockfish Mount's Bay Sardines in Olive Oil, one Brixham Cuttlefish in Ink Sauce, one Lyme Bay Mussels in Escabeche and one Brixham Bay Mackerel in Olive Oil. It really is that easy to guarantee smiles on Christmas morning.