Choosing a Tin

First time buying tinned fish online? Want to try something new, but you’re not sure what’s right for you? RTG has got you covered with two options: the Cliff’s Notes to our online canned seafood catalog and the catalog itself.

Fishlists

Search or browse customer wishlists to find their top picks and special suggestions.

Tin Decider Table

Our tin decider table great place to start! Here are 20 suggestions, listing details like texture, flavor, and price range. Sort the columns to find your perfect can, then Shop Tinned Fish with confidence.

Tin Decider Table

RTG Tinned Fish List

Want more information about tinned fish? It’s all collected in the RTG Fish List. Over 430 types of canned seafood and 27 attributes from Latin name to sodium content. Search, sort, and learn about all the products we carry.

A screenshot of the RTF Fish List spreadsheet
Rainbow Tomatoes Garden Fish List

Caveats to the data

  • This is a tool for sorting on generalities. It is not a substitute for the specific information contained in each product’s web page. Nothing on this spreadsheet should be construed to mean any product listed is safe to consume for anyone with an allergy to anything.
  • This was all manually entered, I’m a human, mistakes may have been made. Please let me know if you spot anything obviously incorrect.
  • For simplicity and space savings, everything is called “fish”, even if it’s a clam or an octopus &c, and everything is a “tin”, even if it’s a jar.
  • Prices change with some frequency, this spreadsheet is updated with a different frequency. Prices may or may not be accurate. The product’s page on the website is the one true current price.
  • Any cell with a ? or an x means the information is currently unknown. I’ll continue to work on those.
  • It’s impractical to have a column for every possible ingredient. The product’s page on the website contains the full ingredient list. Many tinned fish products have something exceptional about them which makes them difficult to pigeon-hole into simple columns, for example the Mouettes d’Arvor Sardines with Sundried Tomatoes and EVOO lists the ingredients for the sundried tomatoes, and those ingredients include regular olive oil and rapeseed oil. Let this spreadsheet be a help to your sorting, but do not take it as gospel.
  • “Oil/Water Used” column also lists the oil used in items not packed exclusively in oil, for example a product with a sauce may incorporate an oil into that sauce. I have listed that oil here, as my thinking is that someone who wants to completely avoid (for example) seed oils will want to know that the tomato sauce (for example) is made using sunflower oil.
  • Chili peppers are not considered an “inclusion” for the purposes of “Sauce/Inclusion” column, because they have their own column.
  • “Organic” means the tin contains some amount of certified organic agricultural products. The product’s page on the website contains more specific details.
  • Where multiple ingredients are listed the order is as specified on the label (which should always be in descending order of quantity).
  • “Spiced/Spicy” could be any combination of piri piri pepper, clove, bay, carrot, cucumber, cayenne, or pepper extract, see product page for exact ingredients.
  • “Smoked” includes all methods of getting that flavor in there.
  • “Citrus” includes everything from slices of fruit to “lemon essence”.
  • “Chili pepper” most often means piri piri, but can also mean just about any hot pepper, see product page for exact pepper.
  • “Tomato” indicates “no” where it appears as if the tomato is a minor ingredient in a sauce the average person wouldn’t call a tomato sauce.
  • “Garlic” indicates “no” where it appears as if the garlic is a minor ingredient in a sauce the average person wouldn’t call a garlic sauce.
  • Some ingredients contain producer-specific qualifiers like “cold-pressed”, “refined”, “sea”, “Atlantic” &c. which I have dropped for clarity.
  • Sodium numbers are based off of tin labels, and are a mess (particularly the Jose Gourmet, which I suspect are in some instances mistaken by a factor of 2), because serving sizes are a mess (some numbers are based on per 100g of product not per serving) and different producers are using different recommended calories per day numbers, and other reasons that all boil down to inconsistent methods of reporting. It is beyond the scope of this project to rectify/normalize these reporting inconsistencies. If sodium content is crucial to you, my suggestion would be to look at the grams per serving number, and pay really close attention to the number of servings per tin, because shenanigans are happening there, as well.
  • Tin weights are as given on the product labeling. There is inconsistency beyond the scope of this project to normalize. Some packages say “Net Weight” some include a “Drained Weight” and some are silent on what, exactly, is being specified. Where two sets of measurements exist I’ve recorded the heavier, with the thinking that we’re trying to picture how big the tin is.

How to Sort & Filter the Spreadsheets

Both the Tin Decider and the Fish List are Google Sheets.

To filter based on one column, simply click the inverted pyramid icon at the right side of the column header.

To filter based on multiple columns (first this, then that, &c), select the entire sheet (by clicking the box at the upper left of the sheet, above the first row and to the left of the first column) and then choose Data | Sort Range | Advanced range sorting options

Screenshot of menu dropdown showing range sorting
Where to find the Advanced sorting options
Screenshot of data sorting screen
Protip: check “Data has header row” to get the column names.

Click to buy some of the tins from the Tin Decider Table