Why American Tuna Processes Every Can on U.S. Soil — And What That Actually Costs

Why Every Can of American Tuna Is Processed on U.S. Soil

American Tuna is one of the only canned seafood companies in the country that catches, hand-fillets, and packs its wild albacore without ever putting the fish on a boat bound for a lower-cost country. We're a family-founded brand out of San Diego, and every can of our american made canned tuna is processed start to finish at small canneries in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska — never sent overseas and imported back.

That choice costs more than the industry standard, and it's a big part of why our cans sit at a higher price point on the shelf. Here's what the domestic-only process involves, what it costs us to run it that way, and why we think it's worth paying for.

The Overseas Shortcut Most Canned Tuna Takes

Most people assume a can of tuna caught off the U.S. coast stays in the U.S. the whole way through. It usually doesn't. According to NOAA Fisheries, more than 85% of the seafood Americans eat is imported or re-imported after being sent overseas for processing, and tuna is one of the biggest categories caught up in that pattern.

A boat catches the fish in U.S. waters, but the loins get frozen and shipped to a canning plant in Southeast Asia or a similar low-cost hub, then packed and shipped back to a U.S. shelf. A lot of what looks like american made canned tuna was only caught here, not made here. We don't do that — our domestic tuna processing happens within a few hundred miles of where the boats dock.

What Domestic Processing Actually Looks Like

Once our boats land their catch, the albacore goes straight to one of our own canneries — Charleston, Oregon or Bellingham, Washington for tuna, Alaska and Oregon for our wild salmon. Workers there hand-fillet each fish and hand-pack it directly into the can, raw. Nothing is pre-cooked or boiled down first.

The fish is cooked exactly once, sealed inside the can it ships in, which keeps the natural juices and oils in instead of draining them off first. That's part of why the texture and flavor read differently than a shelf tuna cooked in a giant batch elsewhere. It's a slower way to run a line, and it's what our US canneries albacore turns into: something closer to a fillet than a paste.

Why U.S. Processing Costs More

Hand-filleting and hand-packing take people, not machines, and American cannery wages are simply higher than what's paid at overseas processing plants. SeafoodSource has reported that fish-cutting jobs paying several dollars an hour in the U.S. get filled in Southeast Asia for a fraction of that, a wage gap that's a major reason so much seafood processing moved offshore in the first place.

Skipping the overseas leg also means skipping the freezing, the round-trip ocean freight, and the extra handling of shipping raw fish to another continent and back. Automated overseas lines simply push more cans through per hour than a small crew hand-packing loins one at a time. That's genuinely why canned tuna costs more when it's made this way: the labor is pricier and there's no cheap-freight shortcut built in.

Is the Price Worth It? What You're Actually Paying For

A can of American Tuna runs more than a supermarket brand, and we're not going to pretend that isn't a real consideration at checkout. What that price buys is fish that was never pre-cooked, never sitting in broth or oil fillers, and never handled by a processor we can't name.

It's also earned us some outside validation we didn't ask for: Bon Appétit named us its pick for best specialty tuna, America's Test Kitchen ranked us a tasting winner, and MSN listed us among the healthiest canned tuna brands sold in the U.S. If you're buying two or three cans a month instead of two or three cases, the price gap lands closer to a few extra dollars a week than a real budget strain — and you're getting american made canned tuna that a line worker packed by hand, not a plant we've never visited.

Certifications and Traceability You Can Actually Check

We don't ask you to take "sustainable" at face value. Our fish comes from the North Pacific pole and line albacore fishery, the Marine Stewardship Council's first-ever certified tuna fishery, using pole and troll gear that lands one fish at a time with close to no bycatch.

Beyond MSC certification, every boat in our fleet is Dolphin Safe and IPNLF-certified for one-by-one fishing methods. Read more on our sustainability page, and check the code on your own can:

• MSC Certified — first tuna fishery in the world to earn it
• Dolphin Safe — verified one-by-one catch method
• IPNLF Certified — one-by-one fishing method standard
• Can-level traceability — trace your can back to the vessel that caught it

Run the code through our Trace Your Tuna tool and you'll see the actual boat that caught your fish. Not many canned tuna made in USA brands can offer that.

The Communities Behind Every Can

American Tuna started in 2004 when six Pole & Line fishing families in San Diego decided to build a brand around the way they already fished. Buying directly supports the small West Coast ports where those boats still dock, plus the cannery jobs in Charleston, Bellingham, and Alaska that keep those towns working. Read more about the families on our about page.

Every processing job sent overseas is a cannery job that doesn't exist in Oregon or Washington. We've written before about why buying hand-packed canned tuna matters and how buying American tuna supports U.S. fishing communities. It's payroll at a specific cannery.

Ready to taste the difference domestic processing makes? Shop American Tuna and see what hand-packed, single-cook tuna actually tastes like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does American Tuna cost more than other canned tuna brands?

Mainly labor and logistics. Hand-filleting and hand-packing take skilled workers instead of automated lines, and processing everything in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska means we never ship raw fish overseas and back. A lot of "premium" american made canned tuna brands avoid that cost by processing offshore, even when the fish itself was caught by a U.S. boat.

Is American Tuna really all caught and processed in the U.S.?

Yes. Every fish is caught by U.S.-flagged pole and line or troll vessels, and every can is processed at our own canneries in Charleston, Oregon; Bellingham, Washington; and Alaska. None of our fish is sent to another country for canning.

How do I know which boat caught my fish?

Every can has a code printed on it. Enter that code on our Trace Your Tuna page and you'll see the specific vessel that caught it.

Is it worth paying more for American Tuna, and where can I buy it?

If you care about knowing exactly where your food came from and who handled it, most people find it's worth the extra cost. Order online through our tuna collection, or check our subscription page if you want it delivered on a regular schedule at a slightly better price.

Sources

• NOAA Fisheries — trade monitoring feature noting more than 85% of U.S. seafood consumption is imported or re-imported after overseas processing
• SeafoodSource — reporting on the U.S.-to-Southeast Asia wage gap driving seafood processing offshore
• Marine Stewardship Council — press release on the North Pacific albacore fishery's first-in-the-world tuna certification