Fishwife reels in bold flavors, creative branding to revive canned fish category

Milstein, who spent time traveling in Spain and Portugal, was captivated by the vibrant and artistic packaging of the culinary-forward tinned fish which are also known as conservas.

As the popularity of canned fish grew​ – particularly for its shelf stability, nutrition and flavor – during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Milstein built Fishwife in a way that filled in the otherwise “commoditized” canned fish aisle in retailers, she said.

“All canned fish is blue and white and has a green fish on it. It is not really speaking at all to the culinary aspect of the product or its origins. It definitely did not hearken back to a really artistic and beautiful tradition around conservas that exist in Portugal and Spain and many other countries,” she said.

The brand offers flavor combinations like Cantabrian Anchovies in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Sardines with Preserved Lemon and Slow Smoked Mackerel with Chili Flakes. The flavorful varieties are also complemented by Fishwife’s colorful packaging illustrated by Danny Miller.

Cold calls net angel investments​

Initially, Fishwife bootstrapped “for about eight months,” Milstein said.

Coupled with funding from friends and family, Milstein also received funding from angel investors and entrepreneurs she cold pitched online.

“You can find these angel [investor] lists online. I found one of them that had a couple 100 investors and started trying to get some folks on board and that was productive,” she said.

These cold pitches led to funding from investors like Andy Dunn, who founded the menswear e-commerce brand, Bonobos.

Milstein raised three times more funding than originally planned, which helped support “the business for the first year and a quarter that we were out in the world,” with inventory and marketing, she said.

At the end of 2021, Fishwife was primarily DTC with some focus on selling to specialty shops, she added. For the first two years of the business, Fishwife was in up to 1,000 specialty stores, which set the stage for national retail chains like Whole Foods Market, Wegmans, Sprouts Farmers Market, World Market and regional chains like Earth Fare in the Southwest and New Seasons in the Pacific Northwest.

Clearing up ‘foggy’ seafood supply chain challenges​

Milstein initially started building a supply chain in Spain and Portugal due to their established tinned fish markets and worked with a cannery in Spain to package Fishwife’s sardines. Due to pandemic-related supply chain challenges, Milstein also began working with a cannery in Oregon and Washington for sardines and tuna.

Navigating the complex and “foggy” seafood industry​ was a challenge, she said. Milstein worked with two independent seafood sustainability advisors to “help … wade through that confusion and make sure that we were making the most responsible choices,” she said.

Milstein added she initially chose fisheries she thought “were very good in terms of sustainability and … over times I had to end up changing the fishery because the fishery we were sourcing from was not certified sustainable. So, it was definitely a process of learning who to trust and learning that sustainability is a term that can be used loosely.”