Aug 31, 2026
'We're facing a double whammy': America's hottest tinned fish snack is shrinking thanks to climate change and war in Iran
In a recent report published by Fortune, fisheries economist Dr. Rashid Sumaila breaks down why the boom in tinned fish is colliding with an unprecedented supply crisis. While sardines have rapidly become a trending pantry staple and restaurant favorite across the United States, Sumaila, Canada Research Chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, warns that the industry is being hit by a rare and compounding “double whammy”: the twin shocks of climate change and surging energy costs driven by the war in Iran.
As detailed in the Fortune piece, the crunch stems from an unsustainable economic and ecological trap. Sumaila explains that because sardines are acutely sensitive to ocean temperatures, warming waters are pushing schools away from traditional coastal grounds in top-producing regions like Morocco. Simultaneously, conflict-driven disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz have sent global fuel and freezing prices soaring. Sumaila emphasizes that fishing fleets are now forced to travel significantly farther into deeper waters to locate shifting stocks at the exact moment operational costs are at their highest, returning with nearly half their previous catch.
Sumaila also uses the Fortune platform to caution against misguided policy reactions, taking aim at harmful government interventions. He highlights the irony of capacity-enhancing fuel subsidies, a dynamic he jokingly dubs “A fish called subsidies”, which encourage overfishing rather than allowing fleets to adapt to ecological reality. Furthermore, he casts doubt on short-term protectionist measures like Morocco’s frozen sardine export bans, warning that trade restrictions typically trigger unpredictable counterreactions without resolving the root shortages.
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Ultimately, the Fortune feature underscores Sumaila’s warning about the broader socioeconomic fallout: consumers worldwide will inevitably find themselves “paying more to eat less.” While rising prices will squeeze household grocery budgets globally, Sumaila stresses that the hardest blow lands on vulnerable, lower-income populations who depend on sardines as an essential, affordable source of protein, while compounding pressures force displaced small-scale fishers to migrate in search of a livelihood.
Read the full article in Fortune (Paywalled - subscription required).