Fishwife Bypasses Morocco Sardine Ban With European Supply Chain

Fishwife依托欧洲供应链绕开摩洛哥沙丁鱼禁令 海洋温度上升与浮游生物种群变动正在扰乱全球沙丁鱼储量，迫使各品牌依赖获得MSC认证的欧洲渔场和航空货运，以满足美国激增的需求。 Fishwife创始人Becca Millstein探讨了该公司如何通过鲜艳的包装和可持续来源的海鲜，与传统的蓝白包装罐头品牌形成差异化定位，从而推动北美海鲜罐头的高端化发展。对话梳理了海鲜罐头的复杂历程——从西班牙手工处理、盐腌熟化的坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼，到美国西海岸的微型罐头厂及欧洲的大型加工工厂。Millstein还解释了气候变化、浮游生物质量改变以及摩洛哥出口禁令如何对全球沙丁鱼供应造成冲击，迫使现代品牌在应对航空货运物流的同时实现零售业务的高速扩张。 北美鱼罐头市场近年来从廉价且平庸的储备食品，转变为由社交媒体和居家精致餐饮推动的高端手工艺品类；摩洛哥作为占据全球约 50% 沙丁鱼出口额的主要产地，近期对冷冻沙丁鱼的出口限制对全球供应链造成了严重冲击。 (0:00) 初创品牌 Fishwife 摒弃传统大宗商品的蓝白铁罐设计，采用极具视觉冲击力的手绘插画包装，并借鉴欧洲罐头文化与坎塔布里亚鳀鱼（Cantabrian anchovy）等传统工艺，反向切入高端市场。 (5:00) 传统盐渍鳀鱼需要在粗盐桶中熟化 12 至 18 个月并全程手工修剪装罐，因对温度敏感其保质期仅约 1 年，与高温灭菌后可保存 5 至 7 年的传统罐头存在显著技术差异。 (10:00) 创业初期，Fishwife 通过与美西没有最低起订量（MOQ）要求的微型罐头厂合作解决冷启动难题，随后转向欧洲年产能达 8,000 万至 1 亿罐的多代传承家族工厂，升级至“供应链 2.0”以支撑零售扩张。 (21:40) 针对摩洛哥捕捞量自 2023 年以来下降约 46% 的情况，业内指出海水变暖导致沙丁鱼等饵料鱼迁徙是主要原因，而暂时性出口管制属于负责任的渔业管理手段，并非单纯因过度捕捞所致。 (38:40)

Fishwife founder Becca Millstein argues that tinned seafood is transitioning from a low-cost commodity into a premium artisanal category, even as global environmental shifts and regulatory bans squeeze raw sardine supplies. Premiumization and Counter-Positioning Against Commodity Cans (5:00) Historically viewed as an inexpensive, utilitarian pantry staple dominated by generic blue-and-white metal cans, tinned fish experienced a notable cultural shift around 2020. Accelerated by pandemic-era home dining and social media aesthetics championed by prominent culinary figures, U.S. canned fish sales rose 10% year-over-year. Millstein launched Fishwife to counter-position against legacy domestic brands by adopting vibrant, hand-illustrated packaging inspired by Spanish tapas culture and Portuguese conservarias. While 2010s direct-to-consumer businesses often competed by undercutting incumbent prices through commodified manufacturing, Fishwife relies on traditional grocery retail for roughly 80% of its volume, treating direct online sales primarily as a marketing channel. Millstein notes that contemporary consumers show a willingness to trade up for higher-grade, sustainably certified seafood rather than lower-cost substitutes. Offshore Artisanal Processing and Domestic Canning Decline (10:00) The infrastructure required to can seafood has largely vanished from the continental United States, which now retains an estimated five ocean canneries in the lower 48 states due to stringent FDA rules introduced around 15 years ago, depleted local fisheries, and offshore competition. Even wild Alaskan salmon is routinely shipped to China for initial processing before returning to American consumers. To secure manufacturing, Fishwife initially relied on small West Coast micro-canneries that had no minimum order quantities before transitioning to multi-generational European facilities capable of producing tens of millions of cans annually. Traditional European processing relies on artisanal labor tailored to specific species. In Santoña, Spain, purse-seine-caught Cantabrian anchovies are auctioned, headed, gutted, and cured in coarse salt for 12 to 18 months before being hand-washed, trimmed, and tinned in extra virgin olive oil. Because these salt-cured anchovies are not heat-sterilized, they are temperature-sensitive and maintain a shelf life of roughly one year, contrasting with heat-sterilized canned fish that last five to seven years. Ecological Disruptions and the Moroccan Export Squeeze (30:30) The global sardine market faces acute supply pressure centered in Morocco, which accounts for roughly 50% of worldwide sardine exports. Beginning in 2023, Moroccan sardine catches fell by approximately 46%, prompting the government to ban frozen sardine exports to protect domestic canneries, though exports of fully processed tins continue. Observers point to warming mid-Atlantic waters that prompt temperature-sensitive forage fish to migrate to deeper or cooler zones, as well as shifts in plankton quality that produce leaner, less caloric sardines. Despite the resulting shortages, Millstein notes that certifying organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch maintain a yellow rating for the fishery, suggesting well-enforced regulation rather than unchecked overfishing. While Spanish canneries historically sourced around 90% of their raw sardines from Morocco, Fishwife avoided supply disruption by relying exclusively on Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fisheries in Cornwall, England, and the Iberian Peninsula. Supply Shocks and Retail Trade-Offs (33:00) The combination of Morocco's export ban and heightened consumer interest wiped out retail inventory across major U.S. chains, increasing Fishwife's sardine sales velocity by 2x to 5x starting in December. To capture empty retail shelf space without waiting for standard ocean cargo, the company absorbed severe gross margin compression by air-freighting finished inventory directly from Europe. When favorite products are out of stock, consumers frequently cross-shop among other tinned species like mackerel, tuna, salmon, and trout. However, Millstein observes that anchovies rarely serve as a direct protein substitute due to their distinct culinary role. While responsible fisheries management and temporary multi-year closures can successfully restore fish populations, the intersection of slow biological assessments, climate-driven forage fish migration, and rising competition for certified sustainable fisheries is expected to maintain upward pressure on retail tinned fish prices.

彭博社《Odd Lots》节目探讨了罐装沙丁鱼从低价大宗商品向高端手工风尚的演变；Fishwife 创始人 Becca Millstein 指出，在欧美水产供应链失衡、气候变化引发海洋生态波动及主要出口国限制供应的背景下，现代罐头品牌必须在风投支持的高速扩张与传统手工慢周期之间寻求平衡。 品牌定位重塑与美国本土罐头工业萎缩 (5:00) 过去五年间，北美罐装海鲜逐渐摆脱单调铁罐包装的平价廉价标签，转变为兼具美学与品质的手工食品。Millstein 受西班牙格拉纳达小吃文化与葡萄牙高端罐头店（conservarias）启发创立 Fishwife，运用色彩鲜明的手工插画包装打破传统认知。在 2020 年疫情期间，Alison Roman 与 David Chang 等名厨的推广助力该品类销量同比增长 10%，推动 Fishwife 突破依靠廉价广告的传统 DTC 模式，将 80% 的业务重心转向线下实体零售。 这一消费趋势同时衬托出美国本土海产罐头制造业的急剧萎缩。历史上加州罐头厂街（Cannery Row）与缅因州曾是繁华的罐装基地，但在过去 15 年间，受 FDA 监管趋严、本土渔场衰退及海外低成本代工竞争的影响，美洲本土 48 州仅余约 5 家罐头厂。甚至阿拉斯加捕获的野生鲑鱼，通常也要横跨大洋运至中国初加工再返销美国，凸显出本土罐装供应链的空心化现状。 传统手工腌渍与风投高增长周期的冲突 (10:00) 高端海鲜罐头极度依赖传统手工技艺。以西班牙桑托尼亚的坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼为例，当地渔民在离岸 6 英里处通过围网捕捞并快速拍卖，送入家族罐头厂后去头去脏，并在粗盐桶中熟化 12 至 36 个月（Fishwife 采用 12 至 18 个月）。随后工人手工清洗、剔皮修剪并封入特级初榨橄榄油。这类盐腌产品保质期仅约 1 年且对高温敏感，与经高温灭菌可存放 5 至 7 年的工业罐头截然不同。 这种传统工艺与追求爆发增长的风投商业模式存在天然摩擦。创办初期，美国代工厂因品类停滞曾建议其改用塑料挤压袋，Millstein 则转向具有闲置产能的欧洲世代家族工坊合作。为了规避动辄数万件的最低起订量（MOQ），品牌初期依赖俄勒冈州和华盛顿州服务业余钓客的微型工坊，期间曾遭遇核心产品断货三个月的阵痛。到 2023 年公司重构供应链并对接年产达 8000 万至 1 亿罐的欧洲大型厂家，但面对年增速习惯维持在 5% 的欧洲传统工坊，品牌翻倍增长的需求仍必须受制于提前 3 至 12 个月的严谨原料采购规划。 摩洛哥禁运冲击与可持续认证供应链 (30:30) 全球沙丁鱼贸易正面临严重的供给收紧。摩洛哥占据全球约 50% 的沙丁鱼出口份额，历史上西班牙罐头厂高达 90% 的原料依赖摩洛哥进口。为保护本国加工业与应对生态压力，摩洛哥近期出台冷冻沙丁鱼出口禁令。叠加社交网络对沙丁鱼营养价值的推波助澜，Trader Joe's 等主要零售商货架被迅速扫空，促使零售商向替代品牌大量下达紧急订单。 Fishwife 得益于严格的可持续采购策略未受断供直接冲击。公司完全采购经海洋管理委员会（MSC）认证的野生渔获，最初依赖欧洲近五年唯一的英国康沃尔可持续渔场，后纳入新获认证的伊比利亚渔场。面对摩洛哥禁令后订单暴增 2 至 5 倍的局面，品牌为填补零售缺口不惜牺牲毛利率，选用高成本空运替代常规慢速海运直运欧洲成品，以此在供给危机中快速确立货架优势。 气候变暖、浮游生物变化与渔业生态管理 (38:40) 短缺背后交织着复杂的气候与生态因素。2023 年摩洛哥沙丁鱼捕捞量骤降约 46%，但受访者指出过度捕捞并非主因，蒙特利湾水族馆海鲜监视器（Seafood Watch）的黄色评级表明该渔场监管有效。关键诱因在于水温升高导致大西洋中部的沙丁鱼和凤尾鱼向更深、更冷的海域迁徙，增加了捕捞难度，同时吸引了金枪鱼等天然掠食者争夺资源。 水温上升还引发了浮游生物的品质退化。较暖海水中浮游生物脂肪与热量密度下降，导致沙丁鱼体脂偏低，难以满足优质罐装所需的高标准鱼肉品质。受访者强调，临时关停捕捞是负责任的渔业管理手段，过往经验表明休渔 3 至 5 年即可实现种群有效恢复。而在终端消费层面，面对沙丁鱼断货，消费者通常会在沙丁鱼、鲭鱼、金枪鱼和鲑鱼间灵活替换，但具调味特征的凤尾鱼则很少被当作日常正餐的蛋白质替代品。 高端海鲜罐头的兴起验证了传统大宗商品通过品牌重塑与品质溢价实现升级的潜力，但该模式的持久性仍受制于多重考验。短期内，通过代价高昂的空运弥补供应链错配难以持续维系盈利水平；长期来看，水温上升与浮游生物退化构成的生态压力，或将迫使企业在争夺有限的可持续认证渔获时承担更高的原料溢价与供应不确定性。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下的知名播客《Odd Lots》于2026年8月7日发布在各大播客平台及网页端。节目简介指出，曾经被美国大众视为廉价代名词的鱼罐头在疫情期间迎来爆发式增长，高端手工品牌 Fishwife 创始人 Becca Millstein 做客节目，深入探讨了鱼罐头从低端日常品向高溢价消费品的重塑，以及气候变化、地缘政策（如摩洛哥冻沙丁鱼出口禁令）对全球海鲜供应链带来的剧烈冲击。 ## TL;DR 节目围绕罐装海鲜产业从海洋捕捞到终端货架的全流通链条展开深度拆解。高端罐头海鲜品牌 Fishwife 创始人 Becca Millstein 分享了她如何利用复古手绘视觉破局、撬动欧洲世代传承的家族代工厂，并在突破初创期零起订量瓶颈后跃升至大规模工业化产能。对话重点剖析了当前全球沙丁鱼供应危机背后的多重诱因——中大西洋海水升温导致的鱼群迁徙、捕食者竞争加剧与浮游生物低脂化，以及摩洛哥实施冷冻沙丁鱼出口禁令对欧洲供应链的深远波及。此外，嘉宾还探讨了 2020 年代新消费品牌告别传统平价 DTC 买量打法、转向重押线下实体零售与坚持 MSC 可持续渔业认证的商业逻辑。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对谈兼具轻松诙谐的生活趣谈与严谨扎实的宏观产业洞察。开场两位主持人围绕“挑食者对生鱼的敬而远之”与“忠实拥趸用叉子捞罐头鱼”展开插科打诨，随后迅速丝滑切入复杂的跨国冷链物流与海洋生态经济学。嘉宾坦诚分享了初创期排产脱节、断货数月以及为了抢占货架不惜由海运改为空运压缩毛利的创业真实阵痛，言辞务实生动；彭博科技资讯的穿插更增强了节目的专业商业底色，让整期播客在严谨的供应链拆解中始终洋溢着生机勃勃的求知欲与探索乐趣。 ## Bulletin - `30:00` 摩洛哥沙丁鱼捕捞量因水温与生态波动骤降约 46%，并对未加工冷冻沙丁鱼实施出口禁令以保全本国深加工业，重创曾依赖其 90% 原料的西班牙代工厂，导致欧美零售货架大面积断货。 - `32:20` 精品水产罐头品牌 Fishwife 依靠英国康沃尔和伊比利亚半岛的 MSC 可持续认证渔场避开原料断供，在平价沙丁鱼缺货潮中周转率暴涨 2 至 5 倍，不惜牺牲短期毛利以国际空运紧急抢占商超空白生态位。 - `30:00` 受廉价跨国代工外流、FDA 严苛合规监管及近海渔业资源枯竭影响，美国本土 48 州的水产罐头厂现仅存约 5 家，工业化大型罐装产能几乎全部向阿拉斯加和海外萎缩退守。 - `35:00` 随着社交媒体买量红利见顶，依靠低价平替高价垄断品的传统 DTC 模式式微，高端新消费品牌转向手工美学重塑低端品类，且 80% 的业务放量依靠实体线下商超渠道。 ## Key takeaways - `02:30` 现代海鲜工业高度依赖迂回的全球化分工，例如阿拉斯加野生三文鱼通常需横跨太平洋送往中国进行切片去骨深加工，再运回美国家庭餐桌。 - `05:10` Fishwife 打破了传统大宗金枪鱼罐头冷漠简陋的工业包装模式，通过全职插画师打造高饱和度手绘复古包装，将罐头鱼重塑为具有故事感与审美价值的高端手工艺食品。 - `06:20` 新冠疫情期间居家健康即食需求激增与名厨社交媒体背书相结合，使美国鱼罐头品类实现了近 10% 的年复合增长，为高端消费升级奠定了客群基础。 - `10:00` 西班牙坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼依赖手工去皮与长达 12 至 18 个月的岩盐陈化，因未经过高温蒸煮灭菌，其保质期仅约 1 年且对温度极度敏感，仓储与运输管理成本高昂。 - `15:00` 欧洲南部的百年家族罐头作坊缺乏风险投资驱动，习惯于每年持平或 5% 的慢速稳健增长，与北美初创品牌动辄采购量翻数倍的爆发式增长诉求形成了鲜明的商业文化碰撞。 - `22:20` 在冷启动阶段，Fishwife 通过对接俄勒冈和华盛顿州服务垂钓散客的微型罐头厂（micro cannery），成功规避了传统工业代工动辄数万罐的最小起订量（MOQ）壁垒。 - `25:10` 高端水产罐头具备漫长的原料锁定与交付周期，品牌必须提前 12 个月报备预测、提前数月下达订单锁定原料，极难敏捷响应短期的销量暴增。 - `30:00` 廉价海外劳动力竞争、环境规制与原料短缺共同导致美国本土罐头制造业全面衰落，加州“罐头厂街”等历史产业集群相继关闭，本土 48 州仅剩约 5 家小型水产罐头厂。 - `30:00` 摩洛哥对未加工冷冻沙丁鱼的出口禁令旨在保护本国罐头深加工产业链的高附加值，但这直接切断了西班牙罐头厂高达 90% 的传统沙丁鱼原料供给。 - `32:20` 坚守全球公认严苛的海洋管理委员会（MSC）认证标准，帮助 Fishwife 避开了摩洛哥原料断供的直接冲击，但平价货架的真空将品牌终端周转速度推高了数倍。 - `35:00` 线上获客成本飙升让 2010 年代“干掉中间商做平替”的传统 DTC 商业模式陷入困境，线下实体零售才是食品品类实现真正规模化盈利的主战场。 - `44:15` 中大西洋海水变暖促使沙丁鱼向更深更冷的非传统捕捞海域迁徙，加之浮游生物低脂化营养退化与天敌掠食竞争，构成了当前沙丁鱼荒的核心生态驱动力。 - `46:40` 沙丁鱼短缺并非不可控的过度滥捕所致，相反配额下调与出口限制正是科学渔业监管生效的表现，休渔 3 到 5 年能够让海洋种群完成自我修复与可持续再生。 - `48:15` 合规渔业资源争夺白热化推动原材料采购成本持续上升，终端零售提价已不可逆转；同时平价沙丁鱼断货加速了消费者在三文鱼、青花鱼及金枪鱼等品类间的替代流转。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 赞助口播与主播闲谈：不爱吃鱼的主播与沙丁鱼初体验 节目在几则简短的赞助广告中拉开序幕，内容涵盖 Interactive Brokers 的全球多市场交易、4imprint 的定制品牌推广礼品，以及 Optum 运用数据与技术整合医疗处方与患者护理的服务。随后，《Odd Lots》的两位联合主持人 Tracy Alloway 和 Joe Weisenthal 正式登场，两人以一段老听众耳熟能详的经典生活趣事展开了插科打诨。 Joe 开场便故意打趣 Tracy “热爱海鲜”，而 Tracy 顺势揭短，回忆起两人刚认识不久时的尴尬往事：当年 Joe 第一次邀请 Tracy 到家里做客，事先贴心询问她是否有忌口。Tracy 当时回答自己基本什么都吃，唯独“对鱼不是特别感冒”。结果当她按响门铃坐进 Joe 家时，迎面端上来的竟然是一整碗夏威夷生鱼饭（Poke Bowl）。Tracy 笑称尽管那顿饭确实很美味，自己平时也能吃蟹饼、生蚝，但吃鱼确实得看心情，而迄今为止她甚至从未吃过一口沙丁鱼。与 Tracy 的敬而远之相反，Joe 则是鱼罐头的忠实拥趸，经常毫不讲究地直接用叉子从铁罐里戳起整条沙丁鱼塞进嘴里，或是将它们拌进奶酪沙拉中。Tracy 调侃道，自己这种对鱼挑剔的口味如今反倒成了“省钱又省心”的优势，因为全球沙丁鱼市场正迎来一场前所未有的供应短缺。 ### `02:30` 鱼罐头背后的交错叙事：全球供应链、高端化热潮与摩洛哥出口禁令 话题随即从私人饮食偏好转向宏观经济。在许多人眼中，鱼罐头不过是便利店角落里落满灰尘的廉价蛋白质，但如果仔细拆解它的流通路径，就会发现它深植于当今错综复杂的全球化经济体系之中。主持人回顾了他们曾深入阿拉斯加报道海鲜产业时的见闻：即便是在美国阿拉斯加海域野生捕捞的三文鱼，最终端上美国家庭餐桌之前，往往也要先横跨太平洋运往中国进行切片与去骨深加工，再重新运回美国本土。这种高度依赖跨国分工与航运网络的迂回供应链，揭示了现代食品工业的脆弱与复杂。 与供应链交织在一起的，还有消费市场的剧烈分层与重塑。过去美国消费者对罐头鱼的认知几乎完全被大众平价品牌垄断，但近五年来，罐头鱼尤其是高端金枪鱼和沙丁鱼，正在年轻一代消费者中掀起一场文化复兴与消费升级。而这一浪潮眼下正撞上海洋生态与地缘政策的严峻挑战：占据全球沙丁鱼出口量约 50% 的摩洛哥近期因过度捕捞以及海洋浮游生物锐减，宣布对冷冻沙丁鱼实施出口禁令。海洋食物链底层的动荡不仅推高了鱼罐头产业的成本，甚至波及到了自然界中依赖小型鱼类为食的企鹅等野生动物。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 沙丁鱼与罐头鱼跨国供应链与生态危机 accDescr: 展示从海洋生态受挫到全球供应链加工再到消费升级的各环节互动关系 subgraph ECO["海洋生态与资源短缺"] A["海洋浮游生物匮乏"] --> B["沙丁鱼资源枯竭 / 过度捕捞"] B --> C["摩洛哥实施沙丁鱼出口限制"] B --> D["极地企鹅等捕食者食物短缺"] end subgraph SUPPLY["全球加工与供应链"] E["阿拉斯加/各地捕捞"] --> F["跨国长途冷链运输"] F --> G["低成本中心（如中国）去骨深加工"] G --> H["跨洋回流至终端消费市场"] end subgraph MKT["消费市场剧烈分化"] I["传统平价罐头（低利润大宗）"] J["高端手工罐头（新消费溢价）"] end C --> H H --> I H --> J ``` ### `05:10` 颠覆传统印象：Fishwife 的手绘视觉革命 在这一背景下，节目迎来了本期嘉宾——美国高端罐头海鲜品牌 Fishwife 的创始人兼首席执行官 Becca Millstein。Tracy 坦言自己之所以打算把人生的“第一口沙丁鱼”献给 Fishwife，完全是被其极具辨识度的视觉设计所俘获。Becca 笑着回应，这种包装策略从创立第一天起就是经过深思熟虑的“障眼法”（bait and switch）。 长期以来，美国消费者对罐头鱼的印象停留在超市底层货架上整齐码放的白蓝相间、充满工业感的大宗廉价铁罐。Fishwife 选择了一条截然相反的道路，他们摈弃传统快消品的冷漠外观，采用色彩斑斓、极具艺术感的全手绘复古插画风格，赋予每一款产品独特的故事感与高级感。为了维持这种独特的视觉护城河，品牌至今仍全职聘用着专属插画师，每天为产品线创作全新的手绘内容。 - **视觉反差定位**：用高饱和度、手工插画风格颠覆传统金枪鱼罐头千篇一律的工业包装（白底、蓝字、大宗商品感）。 - **设计资产沉淀**：品牌将插画师纳入正式员工编制，确保视觉资产与品牌调性高度统一且持续推陈出新。 ### `06:20` 品牌灵感之源：从伊比利亚半岛到疫情期的品类爆发 谈及创立 Fishwife 的原点，来自新罕布什尔州的 Becca 回忆起了大学期间在西班牙南部名城格拉纳达（Granada）留学的日子。格拉纳达是西班牙少数仍保留着“点酒免费赠送 Tapas（小吃）”传统的城市。无论是小酒吧附赠的炸土豆片，还是高端酒馆里搭配的伊比利亚火腿、腌橄榄与高品质沙丁鱼，这些无需复杂烹饪、仅凭顶级食材原味便令人惊艳的小吃彻底震撼了她。随后在葡萄牙里斯本的旅行中，当地历史悠久的罐头专营老店（Conserveira）将五花八门的鱼罐头像昂贵图书一样陈列在货架上，这种将水产罐头视为“手工艺瑰宝”的饮食文化，与她家乡超市里平淡无奇的货架形成了强烈的反差。 这一火种在 2020 年新冠疫情期间被彻底引燃。由于居家隔离，大众对保质期长、开罐即食且高蛋白的健康食品需求激增。与此同时，名厨如 Alison Roman、Anthony Bourdain 和 David Chang 长期以来对优质油浸鳀鱼（Anchovies）和高档金枪鱼的推崇开始发酵。Becca 注意到，身边的同龄人甚至开始在 Instagram 上晒出用精美鱼罐头搭配的午餐拼盘——这在疫情前几乎是无法想象的社交行为。数据显示，疫情期间美国鱼罐头品类实现了近 10% 的惊人年复合增长。敏锐察觉到这一品类红利的 Becca 笃定，美国消费者不仅需要品质更好的水产罐头，更愿意为其支付高额溢价，Fishwife 便应运而生。正当 Joe 准备将对话引向实操细节时，Becca 开始拆解一条鱼从冰冷大洋最终进入千家万户厨房的复杂流通全貌。 > “在西班牙留学时，无论你走进多么不起眼的小酒馆，点上一小杯啤酒或葡萄酒，他们都会为你端上精致的小吃——从最简单的薯片到极高品质的沙丁鱼、橄榄和火腿。没有任何繁琐的烹饪，全靠食材本身无可挑剔的质感……这彻底改变了我对食物的看法。” —— Becca Millstein ### `10:00` 坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼的严苛工序与地理集中度 每一个海鲜及罐头海鲜的供应链都极其迥异且充满奇特的行规。以 Fishwife 的坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼（Cantabrian anchovies）为例，其原料完全来自西班牙北部一个名为桑托尼亚（Santoña）的微型海滨小镇。初次踏入桑托尼亚的人往往会感到无比震撼——整座小镇几乎被各类凤尾鱼罐头厂完全占据，沿街漫步，视线所及的巨大仓库外墙上印满了所有你能叫得出名字的罐头品牌标识，整座城镇的经济与生活完全围绕这一种鱼运转。 捕捞通常在距离海岸仅约 6 英里的海域展开。渔民采用围网捕捞法（purse seine method），将宽大的渔网撒向海洋上层，形成包围圈将鱼群聚拢收紧，捞出水面后立即铺冰保鲜，迅速运回 6 英里外的岸边送入当地的拍卖行。在拍卖现场，每批凤尾鱼都会根据体型大小、受损程度以及脂肪含量打上代表品质等级的数字，随后各家罐头厂的代表展开现场竞拍。这些罐头厂绝大多数属于世代传承的家族企业；与 Fishwife 合作的工厂始创于 20 世纪 40 年代，如今已传至创始人的第三代子孙。每天，创始人的孙子亲自前往拍卖行，按照心中的目标价竞拍心仪的鱼批，竞拍成功后，只需穿过短短三个街区，鲜鱼就能运抵加工厂立即投入处理。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 坎塔布里亚凤尾鱼从捕捞到封装流程 accDescr: 展示西班牙桑托尼亚凤尾鱼从围网捕捞、现场拍卖、长期岩盐腌制、手工去皮到封罐入库的完整生产步骤。 subgraph Catch ["海上捕捞与码头拍卖"] A["6英里近海围网捕捞并迅速冰镇"] --> B["送抵桑托尼亚鱼市拍卖行"] B --> C["依尺寸/完整度/脂肪率分级竞价"] end subgraph Process ["三街区内就地精细加工"] C --> D["去头去尾并逐层铺入岩盐桶"] D --> E["盐渍陈化 12 至 18 个月"] end subgraph Pack ["手工精修与装罐"] E --> F["出桶去皮冲洗<br>露出标志性粉嫩鱼肉"] F --> G["手工逐条码放至罐内"] G --> H["注满特级初榨橄榄油并机械密封"] end ``` 加工流程极为严苛且耗时漫长。工人们先切去鱼头与鱼尾，然后将鱼肉与岩盐层层叠放进木桶中，放置陈化 12 到 36 个月不等。陈化时间越长，风味越醇厚、品质越高，但 3 年的周期对资金占用和市场容量而言过于极端昂贵；Fishwife 的产品通常选择腌制 12 至 18 个月以达到理想风味。陈化完成后，工人取出鱼肉，经过手工去皮与多道冲洗程序，原本银灰色的海鱼便褪去外表，露出人们熟知且喜爱的诱人粉嫩肉质。随后，工人们手工将鱼肉一条一条码入罐中，注入特级初榨橄榄油完成封口。 与其他水产罐头不同，凤尾鱼完全依赖高浓度盐渍熟成，并未经过高温灭菌（retort cooking）。这一特性赋予了其娇嫩独特的质感，却也带来了极大的物流挑战： - **保质期差异**：其他经受高温蒸煮的鱼罐头通常拥有长达 5 至 7 年的超长保质期，这对食品企业而言是梦寐以求的库存优势；但冷腌凤尾鱼的保质期仅约 1 年左右。 - **温控敏感**：由于没有经过高温固化，凤尾鱼一旦暴露在过高温度下就会迅速软化解体，因此它在存储、海运与分销端成了供应链条中最脆弱、管理成本最高的产品。 --- ### `15:00` 破局欧洲百年家族代工：从代工荒到爆发式增长的文化碰撞 在 2020 年创立 Fishwife 之前，创始人 Becca Millstein 仅在娱乐行业工作了四年，没有任何水产或生鲜食品行业的从业经验。而面对西班牙当地深厚、封闭且基于宗族纽带维系的百年供应链，外界往往认为新品牌几乎无法破门而入。在消费包装品（CPG）行业，初创品牌寻找代工厂（co-manufacturer / co-man）向来极其艰难——代工厂往往嫌弃初创品牌订单规模小、存活率低，更不愿为了初创品牌那些标榜“更健康（better-for-you）”的怪异原料而调整流水线，普遍更倾向服务能稳定下大单的跨国巨头。 然而，水产罐头行业的特殊历史时期给 Millstein 撕开了一道切口。起初，她联络美国本土的工厂与供应商，对方无一例外都在劝退，甚至质疑：“为什么要想不开去做罐头鱼？罐头鱼市场正在连年萎缩，你应该做软包装挤挤袋（pouches），那才是风口。”但 Millstein 坚决拒绝了这种建议，在她看来，塑料挤挤袋完全背离了自己想要传递的“欧洲慢生活与复古美学”调性。当她转而联络西班牙和葡萄牙的罐头厂时，供需天平发生了意料之外的倾斜： - **巨大市场诱惑**：欧洲代工厂深知美国是全球最大、消费力最强且最具溢价能力的消费市场，但由于跨国营销、品牌建设与渠道拓展难度宛如天堑，他们自身无力涉足；面对一个愿意倾尽全力在北美建立高端罐头品牌的创业者，欧洲工厂乐见其成。 - **闲置产能匹配**：欧洲本地罐头需求平淡，工厂往往只维持每天一到两班、每周五天的工作节奏，并未达到三班倒的满负荷运转，因此有充裕的排产空间留给新客户。 随着合作建立，两种截然不同的商业文明随即碰撞在一起。南欧的水产罐头厂多为家族世代相传，既没有风险投资驱动，也从未想过快速规模化后出售套现（exit），对他们而言每年稳步实现 5% 的增长就算出色，甚至业绩持平也能坦然接受。然而 Fishwife 成立五年多来，彻底激活了北美被压抑的高端需求，当 Millstein 提出每年采购量翻三倍、翻四倍的爆发式增长需求时，这些遵循慢节奏生活、崇尚平稳守业的欧洲代工厂主们几乎感到难以置信与无所适从。 ### `20:00` 广告播报与科技快讯：动态机票定价 本段节目在重返访谈前插播了赞助广告与科技资讯。广告内容涵盖了盈透证券（Interactive Brokers）的第三方人工智能服务声明，以及专为心理咨询师打造的一站式电子病历与管理系统 SimplePractice。随后的彭博科技一分钟（Bloomberg Tech Minute）中，主播 Carol Masser 报道了人工智能对航空票价体系的重塑。彭博记者 Juan Ha 指出，达美航空（Delta）与维珍航空（Virgin Atlantic）等航司正积极引入机器学习模型，告别传统的固定票价阶梯。算法能够结合历史订票数据、当前机舱余票、季节趋势，并实时跟踪竞争对手的运力与价格波动，在几十种变量权衡下实现毫秒级的动态调价。这一技术大幅缩小了过去旅客“捡漏”特价机票的套利空间，热门繁忙航线的上座率与票价被推至极限，而降价优惠则主要向非高峰和冷门航线倾斜。 - **机票定价逻辑剧变**：AI 动态调价正消除热门航班的廉价舱位缺口，传统旅客依靠错峰搜索廉价机票的策略正逐渐失效。 - **技术驱动航司收益管理**：航司利用大模型逼近机舱运力极限，实现单机收益最大化。 --- ### `22:20` 破局“从 0 到 1”：微型罐头厂与无起订量优势 主持人将话题切回 Fishwife 的初创历程，询问在没有既有客群和确定终端需求的情况下，团队如何跨越“从 0 到 1”的冷启动门槛，并下达第一笔生产订单。联合创始人 Becca Millstein 回忆道，公司的破局之年是 2021 年，当时构建的供应链与如今的架构截然不同。许多消费品（DTC）创业公司往往在起步阶段就面临极高的最小起订量（MOQ，Minimum Order Quantity）壁垒，例如想要做一款气泡水，首批代工可能就必须一口气灌装 50,000 罐，这对于无人知晓的新品牌而言无异于巨大赌注。 幸运的是，Fishwife 在北美本土找到了截然不同的生产路径。她们最初合作的加工厂是位于俄勒冈州海岸的一家微型罐头厂（micro cannery），该厂平时主要服务西海岸从加州到华盛顿州的垂钓爱好者，业务模式本质上是散客送来渔获、加工几百罐金枪鱼，因此完全没有传统工业化量产的起订量限制。随后，她们又在华盛顿州拓展了一家模式相近的微型代工厂。与此同时，Fishwife 开始接触一家至今仍在合作的西班牙罐头厂，其首批带有油封柠檬的沙丁鱼罐头订单仅约 20,000 罐，恰好足够支撑第一整年的市场试水。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Fishwife 早期供应链架构 (V1) accDescr: 展示 Fishwife 初创期利用微型罐头厂规避起订量门槛的供应链网络。 subgraph NorthAmerica["北美本土微型供应链"] OR["俄勒冈微型罐头厂<br>(服务海钓散客/无MOQ)"] WA["华盛顿州微型加工厂<br>(极低门槛/手工操作)"] end subgraph Europe["欧洲传统工艺供应链"] ES["西班牙特色罐头厂<br>(首批约20,000罐/柠檬沙丁鱼)"] end Brand["Fishwife 品牌初创期 (2021)<br>轻库存试错与内容营销"] OR --> Brand WA --> Brand ES --> Brand ``` --- ### `25:10` 供应链升级与长期交付周期的挑战 尽管依靠极低的门槛迈出了第一步，但真实的起步阶段充满坎坷。Becca 坦言，初期自己的需求预测（demand planning）做得一塌糊涂，甚至自嘲这是自己在公司里“最糟糕的一项技能”。由于微型代工厂的产能极其有限，俄勒冈加工厂曾突发断货，导致两款主力产品整整断供了三个月。然而，即便在这种断断续续的库存危机中，Fishwife 依然凭借出色的品牌视觉、公关报道与社交媒体红人效应打开了市场知名度。 随着销售规模爆发式增长，公司在 2023 年启动了全面的供应链 2.0 升级。公司全职团队扩张至 18 人，专门引入专业人才接管采购与排产。供应链 2.0 的核心目标是彻底打通美国市场的无上限扩容空间，寻觅年产能达到 8,000 万至 1 亿罐的大型成熟罐头工厂。然而，这种转型也带来了全新阵痛：高端水产罐头并不是一个快周转、短交付周期的行业。面对沙丁鱼销量的指数级暴涨，品牌必须提前整整一年向工厂报备年度预测，随后在提前六个月和三个月时不断修正并正式下达采购订单（PO），以便加工厂锁定番茄、橄榄油以及关键的鲜鱼原料。在不可预测的高增长与长达数月的交付周期之间斡旋，构成了高端食品品牌最惊心动魄的平衡木。 - **断货阵痛**：初创第一年因排产脱节，两款核心产品曾连续 3 个月处于完全脱销状态。 - **供应链 V2 跃升**：从依靠零散手工作坊转向寻觅年产能 8,000 万到 1 亿罐的工业化龙头代工厂。 - **长交付周期链条**：原料采购需要提前 12 个月预报、6 个月锁定、3 个月下达采购单，几乎无法应对短期的爆发式爆单。 --- ### `28:15` 摩洛哥断供隐忧与美欧罐头工业的衰落 主持人分享了一个颇具时代隐喻的细节：由于算法推荐的偏好，他的社交媒体上充斥着来自中国罐头代工厂的 B2B 广告，文案直截了当地写着：“正在遭遇摩洛哥沙丁鱼短缺吗？请选择中国罐头加工厂代工。”主持人借此发问，在 Fishwife 寻求 8,000 万罐级别产能的背后，全球水产罐头工业是否早已在廉价代工潮中被掏空？欧美本土的工业产能是否因数十年的“去工业化”而严重萎缩？ Becca 证实了这一产业变迁的残酷现实。她指出，这与整个美国制造业的衰落轨迹如出一辙。历史上，美国东西两岸曾拥有庞大的罐头加工产业集群，例如加州蒙特雷著名的“罐头厂街”（Cannery Row，约翰·斯坦贝克笔下的工业传奇）以及缅因州沿海的大型工业化加工基地。然而，面对海外极其廉价的劳动力与生产成本竞争，叠加渔业资源和环保政策的多重压力，美国本土绝大多数大型工业级水产罐头厂在约 15 年前就已经彻底关闭倒闭。当 Fishwife 这样的新消费品牌试图重新在美国掀起优质罐头风潮时，她们面对的是一个本土大型生产力早已断代、高度依赖欧洲传统产区并受到地缘原料波动冲击的全球化供给残局。 - **中国代工的全球补位**：中国及东南亚（越南、泰国）加工厂利用数字化营销精准承接因摩洛哥减产外溢的全球沙丁鱼加工订单。 - **美国本土罐头业的消亡**：曾孕育斯坦贝克文学作品的加州及缅因州工业级罐头厂，绝大部分已在过去 15 年间关停并转。 ### `30:00` 美国本土罐头加工业的式微与摩洛哥沙丁鱼出口禁令 谈及美国本土的罐头加工能力时，贝卡·米尔斯坦（Becca Millstein）粗略估计，目前美国本土 48 州（Lower 48）仅剩大约 5 家左右的水产罐头厂，其余主要集中在阿拉斯加。阿拉斯加保留了一些大型工业化罐头厂，专门加工三文鱼等大宗水产罐头。美国本土罐头厂的大规模萎缩是多重因素共同作用的结果：大约 15 年前，美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）出台了极为严苛的新规，许多小型加工厂无力承担合规与维护成本；与此同时，东海岸与西海岸的太平洋沙丁鱼和凤尾鱼渔场数次经历资源严重枯竭乃至关停，上游原料断供直接导致下游工厂接连倒闭。再加上亚洲部分地区极度廉价的加工成本，大量加工环节转移至海外（正如阿拉斯加捕获的鱼会被运到中国加工一样），美国本土罐头制造业彻底走向衰退。 节目中主持人特别厘清了近期震动业界的摩洛哥沙丁鱼危机。摩洛哥并非没有自己的罐头加工能力，相反其罐头工业规模庞大，但以往摩洛哥渔场捕获的大量原料沙丁鱼直接出口给西班牙等国，甚至曾占到西班牙沙丁鱼罐头厂原料供应的 90% 左右。摩洛哥政府颁布的禁令仅仅针对“冷冻未加工沙丁鱼的出口”，罐装成品鱼出口并未受限。这一保护主义举措意在将珍贵的海产原料留在国内，优先保障本国庞大的罐头产业及其高附加值出口。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 沙丁鱼供应链危机与 Fishwife 应对机制 accDescr: 展示摩洛哥出口禁令对欧洲供应链的冲击，以及 Fishwife 依靠 MSC 认证渔场和空运应对断货潮的流程。 subgraph Crisis["传统供应链断裂"] M1["摩洛哥实施冷冻沙丁鱼出口禁令"] --> M2["西班牙罐头厂损失约 90% 原料"] M2 --> M3["欧美零售货架沙丁鱼全线断货"] end subgraph FishwifeRoute["Fishwife 独立供应链"] F1["英国康沃尔渔场<br/>(Cornish, 长期 MSC 认证)"] --> F3["伊比利亚半岛代工厂罐装"] F2["伊比利亚渔场<br/>(Iberian, 近期获 MSC 认证)"] --> F3 end subgraph MarketResponse["应急调配与市场爆发"] M3 --> R1["零售商紧急求援 Fishwife"] F3 --> R2{"运输权衡"} R2 -- 慢船海运<br/>(低成本/环保) --> S1["无法满足即时缺口"] R2 -- 紧急空运<br/>(严重压缩毛利) --> S2["迅速抢占空白货架"] S2 --> R3["销量激增 2 至 5 倍"] end ``` - 全美本土 48 州仅剩约 5 家水产罐头厂，大型工业化设施几乎全部退守至阿拉斯加。 - 摩洛哥曾供应西班牙罐头厂高达 90% 的沙丁鱼原料，其禁令促使欧洲传统罐头供应链遭受断粮冲击。 ### `32:20` 欧洲 MSC 认证供应链与断货危机引发的销量暴增 摩洛哥的原材料出口禁令虽然震动了整个欧洲罐头业，但对 Fishwife 的原料捕捞端并未产生直接冲击。贝卡解释道，Fishwife 从未采用过摩洛哥沙丁鱼，过去五年间一直从英国康沃尔（Cornwall）沙丁鱼渔场采购。在品牌初创期，康沃尔渔场是全欧洲唯一获得海洋管理委员会（MSC）可持续认证的沙丁鱼渔场。直到去年，伊比利亚（西班牙与葡萄牙）沙丁鱼渔场也正式通过了 MSC 认证，Fishwife 随即将其纳入采购版图。由于 MSC 是全球公认最严苛的野生渔业认证标准，坚守该标准的 Fishwife 成功避开了摩洛哥原料断供的直接冲击。 然而，整个市场库存的断崖式蒸发却给 Fishwife 带来了极其剧烈的连锁反应。自去年 12 月起，各大零售渠道的传统沙丁鱼库存见底，Fishwife 的销量“彻底疯了”（go bananas），产品周转速度最初暴涨至以往的 2 到 3 倍，随后更是攀升至惊人的 4 到 5 倍。各大连锁商超的采购经理接连打来紧急求救电话：“我们的沙丁鱼货架彻底空了，你们能顶上供货吗？” 面对前所未有的市场渴求，贝卡与销售主管陷入了艰难抉择。以往货物主要走海运“慢船”（slow ship），不仅最具经济效益，也最符合环保理念；但若要抓住这一波需求，就必须全部转为价格极其昂贵的国际空运。为了抢占货架生态位并让更多新顾客尝到 Fishwife，“我们无数次硬着头皮做出了妥协，宁愿承受毛利率被严重挤压的代价”，全力空运补货。这种由全球性原料供给断层与社媒沙丁鱼热潮交织催生的井喷需求，至今仍未见减退。 - MSC 认证曾长期在欧洲沙丁鱼渔业中处于极度稀缺状态，很长一段时间仅英国康沃尔一家独有，近期才拓展至伊比利亚半岛。 - 突发断货潮使 Fishwife 的终端销售周转率攀升至平时的 2 至 5 倍。 - 为抓住抢占零售货架的窗口期，品牌不惜牺牲短期毛利率，将常规海运大规模替换为高成本空运。 ### `35:00` DTC 模式的黄昏与 Fishwife 的“逆向”高端零售路线 主持人提到，自己在做节目调研时浏览了活跃的 Reddit“罐装沙丁鱼”板块（r/CannedSardines），上面充斥着大量买不到 Trader Joe's 平价沙丁鱼的抱怨帖，以及大批宣传沙丁鱼高蛋白、健康益处的讨论。主持人敏锐地指出，沙丁鱼消费正呈现一种有趣的“消费升级”现象——大众货架断货后，消费者宁愿花高价购买高端精品罐头。 这引发了一场关于 2010 年代与 2020 年代品牌创业逻辑的深度探讨。主持人回顾了 2010 年代 Instagram 黄金期催生的经典 DTC（Direct-to-Consumer，直接面向消费者）打法：以眼镜品牌 Warby Parker 为代表，商学院创业者们寻找那些被传统巨头垄断、价格虚高的成熟品类（比如 Luxottica 售价 350 美元的眼镜），以 20 美元低成本找代工生产，花 10 美元买 Instagram 广告，再以 100 美元通过独立站卖出，靠“干掉中间商”赚取丰厚差价。然而到了 2020 年代，社交媒体买量成本飙升，同样的模式如果投流要花 79 美元，最终可能只剩 1 美元微利。与这种通过平替来打价格战的传统 DTC 套路截然相反，Fishwife 走的是一条“逆向”道路：在一个原本被视为廉价、底层的品类里，重新定义一个高溢价的高端新类目。 贝卡澄清，DTC 独立站渠道其实仅占 Fishwife 整体业务的约 20%，虽然在品牌塑造上至关重要，但并非其商业模型的根基。对于食品饮料行业而言，真正能够做大规模的阵地永远是线下实体零售。谈到品牌溢价，贝卡认为消费者并非排斥花钱，当前全美近一半的消费支出其实是由极小比例的高净值人群贡献的，大众真正厌倦的是被低质的平替 DTC 品牌忽悠。许多打着“比酷彩（Le Creuset）便宜但品质相同”旗号的网红品牌最终在质量上大翻车，贝卡自嘲就曾花 800 美元买过一张质量奇差的网红床架。不过主持人也提到了正面例证——知名行李箱品牌 Away，使用十年后拉链损坏依然能够获得官方免费换新，贝卡也随声附和自己就是 Away 的忠实用户，拥有三个箱子。贝卡强调，Fishwife 的核心价值在于真实透明，产品由欧洲多代传承的家族罐头作坊制作，没有任何花哨轻浮的概念包装，全凭经得起推敲的顶级品质打动消费者。 - Fishwife 并非纯粹的互联网 DTC 品牌，其 DTC 线上销售仅占总业务盘子的 20% 左右，核心放量依靠线下零售渠道。 - 2010 年代 DTC 核心模式依赖“低价平替高价垄断品 + 便宜社交广告”，而在买量红利见顶的 2020 年代，高端化重塑与实体零售渗透成为新消费品牌突围的关键。 ### `39:00` 彭博科技微讯：航空公司利用 AI 重塑机票动态定价 节目尾声切入了由 ChatGPT 赞助的彭博科技一分钟简讯（Bloomberg Tech Minute）。主播卡罗尔·马瑟（Carol Masser）报道，热衷于搜寻低价廉价机票的环球旅行者们即将面临残酷现实：在热门航线上捡漏特价机票的日子恐怕一去不复返了。 据彭博记者黄娟（Juan Ha）报道，从达美航空（Delta Air Lines）到维珍大西洋航空（Virgin Atlantic），越来越多的主流航空公司正在引入人工智能算法系统。这些系统能够在毫秒级别内综合衡量数十种实时变量，对机位价格进行瞬时动态调整。AI 定价不仅大幅提升了航司调整运价的响应速度，更通过精准锁定旅客的支付意愿，在压缩优惠低价票空间的同时，帮助航企实现收益最大化。 ### `44:15` 沙丁鱼危机背后的多重假说：气候变暖、迁徙与“偏瘦的浮游生物” 在插播广告结束后，主持人特蕾西·阿洛韦（Tracy Alloway）与乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）将话题重新拉回沙丁鱼的供应链困境。特蕾西指出，围绕沙丁鱼当前有许多交织在一起的热门叙事：一方面是消费需求爆发，沙丁鱼正迎来高光时刻；另一方面是气候变化导致的浮游生物匮乏，以及流传已久的“过度捕捞”警报。新闻媒体的头条往往相互矛盾——前两个月还在警告全球鱼类资源濒临灭绝，紧接着又宣称找到了更具可持续性的捕捞方式、供给充满韧性。特蕾西向贝卡·米尔斯坦（Becca Millstein）提问：在导致沙丁鱼供应短缺的诸多因素中，眼下最核心的究竟是哪一个？ 贝卡坦言，海鲜可持续性问题最令人沮丧的地方就在于它“具有无休止的细微差别（endlessly nuanced），并且随时处于动态变化之中”。以摩洛哥的沙丁鱼危机为例，捕捞量下滑始于 2023 年，当年捕捞量骤降了约 46%，距今仅过去几年。而渔业科学研究的进展相对缓慢，对某一渔场进行全面评估需要漫长的时间。因此，当前业内探讨的各种假说，实际上都是共同构成这一复杂局面的潜在因素，很难简单归咎于单一变量。 在众多理论中，贝卡认为最核心的驱动力是广义上的**气候变化**： - **水温上升与鱼群迁徙**：中大西洋的水温正在升高，而沙丁鱼、凤尾鱼（鳀鱼）以及青花鱼这类饵料鱼（forage fish）对水温极为敏感。一旦水温发生变化，鱼群往往会迁徙去寻找更冷的水域。这意味着沙丁鱼总量未必真的减少了，而是它们游到了商业渔民难以触及的深水区或更远的海域，脱离了传统捕捞作业区。 - **海洋食物网与掠食者竞争**：水温改变打乱了整个海洋生态链。人类并非沙丁鱼的唯一捕食者，金枪鱼等大型掠食鱼类同样以沙丁鱼为食。水温变化可能促使更多天敌聚集到相关水域，与人类争夺捕捞资源。 - **浮游生物营养退化**：这也是近期被广泛讨论的假说——升温的海水导致浮游生物数量减少，或者变得更缺乏营养、低脂且缺乏热量。特蕾西打趣道“我讨厌偏瘦的浮游生物（I hate a skinny plankton）”，贝卡也附和称没人喜欢这种营养不良的浮游生物。浮游生物缺乏营养，直接导致捕捞上岸的沙丁鱼体型偏瘦、脂肪含量不足，达不到罐头加工所青睐的高品质丰腴度。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 气候变暖对沙丁鱼供给链的冲击机制 accDescr: 展示海水升温如何通过栖息地迁徙、掠食者竞争以及食物网退化三个途径削弱商业捕捞供给。 subgraph Climate["气候变暖驱动因素"] W["中大西洋海水温度上升"] end subgraph Impact["海洋生态链级联反应"] M["鱼群被迫向深海/远海冷水区迁徙<br/>脱离传统商业捕捞区域"] P["天敌掠食者增多<br/>（如金枪鱼加速消耗沙丁鱼群）"] Pl["浮游生物营养降低/低脂化<br/>沙丁鱼脂肪含量与体型缩水"] end subgraph Result["供应链结果"] Catch["商业捕捞难度激增<br/>2023年摩洛哥捕捞量骤降约46%"] Supply["加工原料紧缺与出口禁令"] end W --> M W --> P W --> Pl M --> Catch P --> Catch Pl --> Catch Catch --> Supply ``` --- ### `46:40` 过度捕捞还是科学监管？休渔机制与可持续渔业的自我修复 谈及公众最常担忧的“过度捕捞”，贝卡根据权威认证数据指出，过度捕捞并非导致本次摩洛哥沙丁鱼短缺的主因。Fishwife 最依赖的认证机构是海洋管理委员会（MSC），同时全球备受推崇的蒙特雷湾水族馆“海鲜观察”项目（Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch）也对该渔场做出了评估。当前该渔场的评级为黄色（可接受/良好），表明该区域拥有强有力的监管执行与规范管理，这进一步佐证了当前的供给缩减主要是由气候诱发的生态波动，而非不可遏制的滥捕。 贝卡特别强调，摩洛哥实施的冷冻沙丁鱼出口禁令以及对捕捞量的配额限制，外界看起来可能觉得触目惊心，但这恰恰是“负责任的渔业管理在实际中运作的表现”。这意味着监管机构和业内人士能够直面现实，一旦发现入港渔获数量不达标或体型未达到预期，便果断踩下刹车、关闭捕捞季，给海洋生物留出自我休养生息的窗口期。 - **快速恢复的自我修护机制**：全球范围内存在大量渔业自我修复的成功案例。当某类鱼群捕捞量出现滑坡、渔场果断关闭休渔 3 到 5 年后，种群通常能够完全复原并重新获得可持续认证，恢复年复一年的健康循环。 - **公众认知的转变**：消费者看到超市货架变空时不必陷入恐慌，反而应该为此感到庆幸——这说明相关的资源保护与限制捕捞禁令正在扎实推行，而非放任渔业资源走向彻底枯竭。 --- ### `48:15` 供应链骚扰信息、涨价预期与消费者的品类替代行为 随着罐头鱼市场的火热和供应链的动荡，上游供应格局也发生着微妙变化。乔询问贝卡，是否有许多低于 Fishwife 采购标准的境外代工厂（例如来自中国的罐头加工厂）或处于不同供应链层级的 B2B 供应商，疯狂涌入她的收件箱兜售原料和代工产能。贝卡笑着证实了这一点，不过她表示这些开发信更多是充斥在她的 LinkedIn 私信中，至于工作邮箱可能设置了严密的垃圾邮件过滤机制，她平时很少把精力花在审视这些主动找上门的推销信息上。 讨论随后转向了定价与替代品消费趋势： - **终端零售价格预期上涨**：乔提出，像 Trader Joe's 这样的平价超市如果都面临沙丁鱼罐头缺货，作为原本就处于高价格带的精品品牌，Fishwife 是否会顺势进一步提价？贝卡确认团队正在就调价进行严肃讨论，这几乎是不可逆转的趋势。由于 Fishwife 仅从两处符合高规格生态标准的渔场进行采购，随着可合规捕捞的沙丁鱼资源争夺日益白热化，采购成本水涨船高，最终必然会传导至终端售价。 - **跨品类的鱼类消费替代**：特蕾西以“非鱼类爱好者”的视角发问，当买不到沙丁鱼时，消费者是否会转而购买其他鱼种。贝卡表示，虽然目前缺乏严密的大规模量化数据，但在零售端和线上直营渠道均清晰观测到了“品类流转”现象。许多消费者最开始只是为了尝试某种特定鱼类（例如沙丁鱼）而下单，但随着时间推移，他们会逐步横向扩展到 Fishwife 的其他核心产品线，在沙丁鱼、青花鱼（mackerel）、金枪鱼、三文鱼（salmon）和鳟鱼（trout）之间自由切换。不过，贝卡指出了一个例外——凤尾鱼（anchovies）通常不在这种日常蛋白质的替代选择中，因为在西方消费者的饮食认知里，凤尾鱼更多扮演的是调味佐料角色，而非主食中的整块蛋白质替代品。 ## Notable quotes > `06:20` 在西班牙留学时，无论你走进多么不起眼的小酒馆，点上一小杯啤酒或葡萄酒，他们都会为你端上精致的小吃——从最简单的薯片到极高品质的沙丁鱼、橄榄和火腿。没有任何繁琐的烹饪，全靠食材本身无可挑剔的质感……这彻底改变了我对食物的看法。 — Becca Millstein > `15:00` 为什么要想不开去做罐头鱼？罐头鱼市场正在连年萎缩，你应该做软包装挤挤袋（pouches），那才是风口。 — 美国本土工厂/供应商 > `28:15` 正在遭遇摩洛哥沙丁鱼短缺吗？请选择中国罐头加工厂代工。 — 中国罐头代工厂广告 > `32:20` 我们的沙丁鱼货架彻底空了，你们能顶上供货吗？ — 连锁商超采购经理 > `32:20` 我们无数次硬着头皮做出了妥协，宁愿承受毛利率被严重挤压的代价 — Becca Millstein > `44:15` 具有无休止的细微差别（endlessly nuanced），并且随时处于动态变化之中 — Becca Millstein > `44:15` 我讨厌偏瘦的浮游生物（I hate a skinny plankton） — Tracy Alloway > `46:40` 负责任的渔业管理在实际中运作的表现 — Becca Millstein ## Mentioned Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, Becca Millstein, Fishwife, Odd Lots, Bloomberg, Interactive Brokers, 4imprint, Optum, SimplePractice, Carol Masser, Juan Ha, Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic, Alison Roman, Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Warby Parker, Luxottica, Le Creuset, Away, Trader Joe's, FDA, MSC (Marine Stewardship Council), Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, Cannery Row, John Steinbeck ## Video description <p>Just a decade ago, tinned fish was hardly a premium product. Most Americans likely associated cans of tuna with thrift. But that has changed a lot in recent years. The category took off during Covid and now shoppers are shelling out for high end brands like Fishwife. Today's guest Becca Millstein started the company in 2020, positioning it as a distinct, artisanal product, more akin to one might find in European grocery stores. In addition to the sheer challenges of scaling, the nature of the business itself has changed, influenced by climate change and geopolitics (shortages have led Morocco to suspend frozen sardine exports for instance). We discuss the tinned fish supply chain and how a new brand positions itself in today's media market.<br><br>Read more: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-26/how-trump-s-steel-tariffs-impact-america-s-tin-can-industry?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article">What the American Tin Can Reveals About Trump&rsquo;s Volatile Tariff Policy</a><br><br>Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-link-cookie="1" data-destination="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/253af1b0-6485-46c3-b506-b49e01625633/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[6:20] Becca Millstein: 在西班牙留学时，无论你走进多么不起眼的小酒馆，点上一小杯啤酒或葡萄酒，他们都会为你端上精致的小吃——从最简单的薯片到极高品质的沙丁鱼、橄榄和火腿。没有任何繁琐的烹饪，全靠食材本身无可挑剔的质感……这彻底改变了我对食物的看法。 [15:00] 美国本土工厂/供应商: 为什么要想不开去做罐头鱼？罐头鱼市场正在连年萎缩，你应该做软包装挤挤袋（pouches），那才是风口。 [28:15] 中国罐头代工厂广告: 正在遭遇摩洛哥沙丁鱼短缺吗？请选择中国罐头加工厂代工。 [32:20] 连锁商超采购经理: 我们的沙丁鱼货架彻底空了，你们能顶上供货吗？ [32:20] Becca Millstein: 我们无数次硬着头皮做出了妥协，宁愿承受毛利率被严重挤压的代价 [44:15] Becca Millstein: 具有无休止的细微差别（endlessly nuanced），并且随时处于动态变化之中 [44:15] Tracy Alloway: 我讨厌偏瘦的浮游生物（I hate a skinny plankton） [46:40] Becca Millstein: 负责任的渔业管理在实际中运作的表现

[5:00] Becca Millstein: We had to really counter position from what Americans associated with canned fish, which, as you probably know, was white and blue, super commodity, non-branded canned fish. Becca Millstein: I hate a skinny plankton... I hate when you get served one of those

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Explore more at 4imprint.com. for imprint for certain health care doesn't always work great if you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment you get it that's the kind of stuff optum is changing they're using data and technology to integrate patient care pharmacy and everything else so health care is connected not complicated what that look like cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. Joe, as you know, although you sometimes forget. You love fish. If there's one thing I know about you, Tracy, you love fish. You love seafood, right? That's where you were going, right? That's exactly it. All right. Famously, some people, some long-term Odd Lots listeners will have heard this story before. But the first time Joe ever invited me over to his house, he asked if I had any dietary restrictions. And I said something like, you know, like I eat everything, but I'm not a big fish person. And then I went over to his house and was promptly served poke bowls Yeah Sorry about that It all right They actually really good And I do eat fish on occasion I just not that big into it Like I eat crab cakes oysters I just have to be in the right mood for fish I get it. I get it. One thing I have never eaten, though, is sardines. Oh, yeah. I've had sardines. I like them. Yeah. I don't know if I have like a straw. Do you just like take them out of the can and just stick them in your mouth like that? Yeah, I think I have or I'll put them in like a salad or something like that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. cheese or salad with sardines. I've definitely taken sardines and just like taken one out of a can and eaten it for sure. Okay. Well, I personally don't eat a lot of fish because of the taste, but it turns out it's becoming a pretty convenient distaste to have because we are now facing a sardine shortage. When we talk about tinned fish, it intersects with a bunch of interesting things that we talk about all the time or that come up. So it's like global supply chains generally. I think, you know, I've said this a couple of times on the podcast, but one factoid that I very remember from our trip to Alaska is how much fish is caught off the shores of Alaska. It sold in the United States but first it takes a detour to China for processing That right So even if you buy U Alaskan salmon the chances are it probably been processed through China Yeah I find that to be really interesting I find the sort of marketing of fish and the sort of branding because one thing that we know about Tint Fish especially over the last five years is there a whole like new demographic that doesn just associate it with like the cheap sun or star tuna or whatever that brand was Either the sort of low end tuna, there's sort of emerged this like high and high end premium version of canned tuna, which I really like canned tuna that's emerged. So there are all these sort of like different market things not to. And then you mentioned climate and some of the questions about supply and fish stocks, et cetera. There are many different intersecting stories of the canned fish story. Yeah. And the big news right now is that Morocco, which apparently exports something like 50 percent of the world's sardine supply, has imposed a ban on sardine exports because of, again, citing reports, overfishing. Apparently, there's not enough plankton either to feed the little sardines, which is sad because it means that penguins also don't. Penguins not in Morocco, but penguins elsewhere in the world also don't have enough to eat. So we're going to talk about all these things. We're going to talk about what's [5:00] going on with the world's sardine supply, where sardines come from, where fish in general comes from, how it gets processed, what makes a good tinned fish versus a bad tinned fish. And I'm happy to say, we do in fact have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with Becca Milstein. She is the founder and CEO of Fish Wife, which of course specializes in exactly that, tinned fish. And Becca, thank you so much for coming on Odd Thoughts. I have to say, when I finally eat my first sardine, I think it will be a fishwife sardine. I can't wait for that day, Tracy. I truly can't. Thank you so much for having me. The packaging has got me. The packaging got me. It's very good branding. That was definitely a big focus when I started working on the brand. You got to kind of do a bait and switch. There are a lot of people out there like, you're tricky. Are there going to be fish puns in this conversation? I mean, as many as you'll allow. But yeah, we had to really counter position from what Americans associated with can fish, which, as you probably know, was, you know, white and blue, super commodity, non branded can fish. So obviously what the hard left all hand illustrated is super beautiful branding And we still have our illustrator you know on staff creating new illustrations for us every single day. So tell us about the origins of Fish Wife then. You just touched on it there, but the idea was to kind of make a premium tinned fish product that would maybe make Americans think a little bit more like in Europe, right? In Europe, tinned sardines are like a nice thing to have. I I remember my mom getting very excited about that. Yeah. So I'm from New Hampshire originally. I studied abroad in southern Spain in college in a city called Granada. And Granada is a very interesting city. It's beautiful. Have you been there? I have. Yeah. I've had some of the best timon of my life in Granada and cheese. They really know how to do it. The interesting thing about Granada is that, to my knowledge, it is still the only city in Spain that serves free tapas with every drink. so if you get like a little glass of beer a little glass of wine they will bring you out whether it's you know on the very low end potato chips on the very high end like sardines olives jamon you're just always being fed beautiful little bites and I was super inspired experiencing that and just seeing how delicious these little snacks were because you know they super simple no cooking involved but the ingredients were of such a high quality that it just tasted so so good no matter really what little bar I was at. So between that and seeing the way that Spaniards eat and, you know, really just treasure the high quality of their, their food products, and then traveling to Portugal, which is like where everyone has their conservatory experience. And it's certainly where I had mine in lisbon you know seeing these beautiful shops with rows and rows of gorgeous tinned fish like it could not have been more different than my market basket in southern new hampshire and i at the time certainly you know at age 20 wasn't like i'm gonna do this for the rest of my life but during the covid 19 pandemic i started eating more canned fish it's really really good for you It ready to eat straight out of the tin It still stable You know when we were all trying to not go to the grocery store as much as possible And there was sort of a light bulb moment you know seeing I know you had an Alison Roman on this podcast seeing folks like Alison Roman and Anthony Bourdain and David Chang like they had all been espousing how incredible especially you know really high quality intro was over really high quality canned tuna It was definitely in the ether And I was starting to see in my own peer group you know people posting pictures of like little meals they were creating at home with tinfish which is fascinating because I really feel like before COVID, that was not a habitual thing for people to do, like make a beautiful lunch and post about it on Instagram. So weird. And obviously now it's completely becky. So all of those factors combined added with the bump. I think the can fish category saw like a 10% year over year increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is crazy. It has not been like that since broadly. And I was like, Americans deserve a better product and I think they'll be willing to pay for it. So that was that was really the origin of the company. So there's sort of like two different strains that I'm interested in this conversation. I want to make sure to touch on both. So that's sort of the brand origin. We'll talk more about brand and marketing. Now tell us like and we'll get into it more, but give us the basic supply chain that you have right now of, you know, the short version of like where a fish is caught and the steps it takes until I get it in my kitchen. Like give us like the overall sequence. I'll give you the most simple, straightforward version first. [10:00] which is because the thing that you'll learn throughout this conversation is that every seafood supply chain and canned seafood supply chain is completely different and very strange. So the first I'll give an example of is our Cantabrian anchovies. So we source our anchovies from a tiny town in northern Spain called Santonia. And if you go to this town, Santonia, you will be blown away because it is completely occupied by anchovy canneries. Like that is the town. You walk through this tiny city and it's like every canned anchovy brand you've ever heard of. Their logo like plastered on a big warehouse. So in that case, the fishermen are going out like six miles from shore. They're using the Persene method of fishing, which is it basically is like a big, big, wide net that's cast out into the top, sort of the top of the ocean. It encircles a school of fish. And then the net is sort of pulled together and the fish are brought out of the water and then immediately put on ice. And then they brought you know six miles into shore and they taken to the anchovy auction and they are marked with a number that indicates the quality of the anchovy So that like the size of the anchovy has it been damaged The fattiness of the anchovy it's marked with that quality signifier and then the bids begin. In this case, there's usually one or two folks from each cannery. And keep in mind, these canneries are by and large, maybe all multi-generational family owned. So the cannery that we work with was started in the 1940s by a man who now has had three generation of offspring that have taken over his business and you know have have grown and expanded his business. So anyway today the grandson of this man goes to the anchovy auction and you will you know have a price in mind to bid on these anchovies and he'll go buy a bunch of anchovies and those anchovies will be taken um mere three blocks away from where that auction is happening um and they'll be immediately processed which in this case means i mean i'm going deep in the processing that's great yeah it's great so that means that the anchovies will be basically headed and tailed so their heads will be clipped their tails will be clipped and then they will be put into a barrel of rock salt in layers And they be left there for anywhere between 12 to 36 months. And actually, the longer they're in there, the higher quality they are. That being said, three years is a very, very, very long time. So it's a really, a really expensive product in a pretty limited market. Our anchovies are on average held in there from 12 to 18 months. And during that time, you know, they they're cured and they develop all that beautiful flavor that we associate with anchovies. And then I'm going to keep going at the end of that 12 to 18 month period. They're removed from that bucket of rock salt and they are their skin is removed and basically like the the beautiful little pink anchovy that we all know and love emerges from what otherwise looks like a pretty normal little silver fish like honestly when you when you see an anchovy for the first time like a lot of people think they're sardines because they are these like substantial long silver fish they cleaned that lovely little pink anchovy is removed and then laid one at a time in the tin that you you know you see when you buy a fish anchovy product They're cleaned extensively. They're rinsed and washed. And then they are those cans are filled with extra virgin olive oil in our case. And they're themed. And then anchovies are very unique because unlike the rest of our tinfish products, they are cured through that salt curing method. So they're not actually heat treated, which makes them a dramatically more sensitive product and a much shorter shelf life product than the rest of our tins. So the rest of our tins have an average of between a five to seven year shelf life, which I think you can imagine is like truly incredible to have as a food business owner. Like they're very, very few products with that shelf life. Anchovies only have about a year long shelf life because of that salt curing method. And they can't be exposed to heat because they'll disintegrate. So that's like the simplest supply chain and how concentrated it is. That being said, anchovies as an actual product are by far, far and where are most complex to, you know, store and manage and ship. So you didn't have any prior fish experience before you started this company? [15:00] I did not know I had been in the working world for about four years in the entertainment industry before starting the business. So listening to describe the fish supply chain in a place like Spain, it sounds very familial and sort of close knit and probably hard to break into. Like, I imagine you can't just go and find a fisherman and be like, hey, you want to be our supplier? How did you actually manage to source these particular people and start building up those relationships? That's sort of the interesting crux of this story is in CPG and, you know, in emerging brand CPG, it's very well known that, quote unquote, getting line time or getting a co-man co-manufacturer to work with you is very challenging because, you know, who knows if you're going to be around in a couple of years. your product probably has a bunch of weird, like better for you ingredients that the co-mans don't want to deal with. They would much rather work with much, much bigger companies that they can rely on to produce massive batches of whatever product you're working on. This case is a bit interesting because when I started the business I was reaching out to you know mostly co suppliers et cetera in America And first and foremost everyone was like why are you trying to start a canned fish business Like the canned fish industry is declining Why don't you do pouches? The pouch industry is booming. And I was like, that's really not the vibe I'm going for, guys. Honestly, it doesn't really capture the European romantic aesthetic. So that was definitely at play. It wasn't like, I'm trying to think of another industry. I don't know, beverage. beverage is always, you know, kind of going up and to the right. It wasn't like I had a bunch of other young entrepreneurs that I was competing with for this line time. And it wasn't like the category was, yeah, off like a shot. It was it was flat or in decline. So I think when we reached out to these European canneries, which I started doing, you know, started with the American manufacturers I could get in touch with and then very quickly start reaching out to manufacturers in Spain and Portugal. There is this, you know, America is the biggest market in the world. Establishing a market in a foreign country is, you know, near to impossible because of all of the marketing and brand building work you have to do. That being said, it's this incredibly attractive market There you know very very affluent really high paying customers So I think when we reached out to these canneries they must have seen that they must have seen OK, here is, you know, someone who's going to work really hard to try to build a market for this really premium product in America. And we don't then have to go do that work because, again, you're nearly impossible to accomplish. and we have a capacity like these these canneries that they they are mostly not operating at you know three three shifts a day seven days a week maybe they're operating at you know one or two shifts a day for five days a week so there was some capacity at all these canneries that we reached out to i think the the crazy part for them is seeing how quickly an american business can grow Because, you know, as mentioned, these businesses have been around for generations. They're family owned. They're not venture backed. They're not looking to, you know, scale in a few years and exit like the way that we think about business in the U.S. is just so different from how these businesses are, you know, conceiving of their own. Like if they have 5% year over year growth, that's amazing, flat, it's fine. In some cases I don want to generalize but like they are certainly not trying to grow too much or 50 year over year So I think you know Fishwife has been around for five and a half years now The demand has been revealed for these products. And I think watching these partners that maybe have been fine with 5% year over year growth and seeing Fishwife's, you know, volume requests triple, quadruple year over year. it's like hard for them to wrap their heads around. What if you could use AI to research your investment portfolio and ask, find profitable mid-cap energy companies with growing cash flow? Which AI infrastructure stocks appear undervalued? or rank stock opportunities based on valuation, growth, and risk. With Interactive Brokers, you can connect ChatGPT or Claude to your investment portfolio to research investments, analyze your holdings, and uncover potential undervalued opportunities. AI accelerates the research. You can make every investment decision. 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I guess, as they say in the startup world, the zero to one question, even if it was a little easier than maybe other DTC categories, what was the actual process of going to, I've got to place an order and sell it, and the commitments that you had to make to place that order? Yeah, that's a great question. So our zero to one year was 2021, and it had a distinct supply chain from the one that we have today for the most part. So as I mentioned, when I started working on the business, I was looking and open to building supply chain both in North America and in Europe So in the first year of the business I started working with the first cannery we ever worked with was a tiny micro cannery in Oregon on the coast of Oregon This is mostly servicing sports fishermen from the West Coast whether California up to Washington So like we're not talking MOQs here. This is people coming in, bringing their catch and saying, hey, make me, you know, 500 cans of tuna. So that was the first cannery. Then we started working with one in Washington State, which was very similar profile, micro cannery, super hands on, no MOQ. And to be honest, what's MOQ stand for? Minimum order quantity. Oh, great. Thank you. So, so, yeah, speaking to the issues I mentioned earlier, a huge issue that startups face is, you know, I want to start a beverage company. You need to make 50,000 units of your sparkling water brand, you know, on your first run before you have any demand, before anyone knows who the heck you are. So all in all, we didn't have an MOQ issue. We certainly didn't have it in the domestic canneries because they are so, so small. And then when we started working with our first cannery in Spain, which we still work with today, we still work with the cannery in Washington state. That MOQ is still on the smaller side. I think it was maybe 20,000 units, I think. So I think I ordered 20,000 units. [25:00] of our sardines with preserved lemon and it lasted us maybe the entire year but it was super messy like i had no idea what i was doing i mean demand planning it was the probably the worst thing i am at in the entire company um so so we like uh in the oregon cannery we went out of stock unexpectedly we were out of stock of two products for three months like that is what the zero to one year looked like it was stops, stop starts, et cetera. But all the while, even with those stops and starts and even with that very small amount of inventory, I was really able to build the brand that year. Like we still got a lot of press coverage. We still got a lot of influencer coverage and, you know, was able to build the bread, even though the supply chain has has since transformed significantly. Well, that was going to be my next question. So as your business has scaled up and you know, the from the numbers you were suggesting earlier, it sounds like it's grown very, very quickly. Has securing product become easier for you? It's become easier and harder It become easier because now you know we have 18 employees at the company and they a lot better at securing product than I was by myself So that part internal resourcing has become a lot easier And then you know we did this big supply chain transformation in 2023, where we were really looking to go from that supply chain V1 that I described to you to supply chain V2, that, you know, the goal was this supply chain B2 could see us through essentially unlimited scale in the American market. So we were looking for canneries that could produce 80 million cans a year, 100 million cans a year. So that was a transformation we went through. And by and large, we have been able to scale enormously and very, very quickly, you know, in the grand scheme of things. That being said, like, I think the sardine situation is a really good example we have seen our demand for that product go through the roof essentially exponentially then that unpredictable demand that we are sometimes faced with which we can go into in a minute if we want to dig into the sardine situation that is when we presented with uh just challenges because yeah those things can happen so quickly and this is not a super fast lead time supply chain like we trying to tell our canneries what we need a year ahead then six months ahead then three months ahead placing the po so they can really secure the raw material that we need to produce the product that we need so i think that's that's the tricky part of being a high growth brand in a long lead industry yeah you just never know what their growth is going to look like in a year. Well, I'm glad you got to the sardine part, because there was one thing that I meant to say in the intro. One other thing that piqued my interest in this whole story is that on Instagram, because I have a really messed up Instagram feed and algorithm, on Instagram, I get served a lot of B2B ads for Chinese sardine manufacturing facilities who on the ad itself say, are you dealing with the Moroccan sardine shortage? Source your canned sardines from China, et cetera, which I thought was like really fascinating to me Talk about so you like getting to like OK you 80 100 million units you know up until again five years ago this was not a high growth category I imagine for years and years you have the emergence of these very inexpensive canneries in China but also I believe Vietnam and Thailand and elsewhere Prior to companies like you entering the market, was there sort of this shrinking of the industrial capacity in the types of places that you want to source from in, say, Europe or maybe parts of the US that was shrinking due to this sort of global deindustrialization phenomenon? And has that contributed to today now that it is a high growth category, or at least for you, it's a category that there are, you know, that's constricted, that it's constrained because of the sort of years of like hollowing out from global competition? Yeah, I mean, I think it's the same stories as like all American manufacturing stories. There were once booming canneries on either coast of the U.S. California probably read Cannery Row or in on the coast of Maine. There were these bigger, more industrial canneries and a combination of factors contributed to those shutting down. Basically, like most canneries in the U.S. shut down like 15 years ago. today. [30:00] There are this is an estimate, but I would say like five ish in the lower 48 and then probably several more in Alaska. Alaska is where you would find some of the bigger, more industrial canneries that are doing like commodity Alaskan canned salmon, etc. But yeah, I think due to a combination of factors, I know that there were really stringent FDA rules or put in place about 15 years ago that a lot of the canneries in the U.S. couldn't upkeep, couldn't manage. Some of the fisheries really declined. So the Pacific sardine and anchovy fisheries, there have been moments of real decline on both the east and west coast. And with the decline of those fisheries and the shutting down of those fisheries, the canneries followed because obviously. And then having this very cheap processing available in various parts of Asia, so much of the processing moved over there, like you were saying, with the Alaskan processing that you see in China. So it's a common story and it definitely is what happened in the US. Sorry just to be clear the Moroccan sardine situation it not that you can can sardines in Morocco That where the sardines themselves are caught and then exported to the canning places in it seems mostly Spain and maybe Portugal Is that right That is correct. There are certainly canneries and cannery infrastructure in Morocco, but so much of the raw material from the Moroccan sardine fishery was being exported to Spain. I think it was like 90% of the raw material in Spanish canneries of sardines was coming from Morocco. Um, so no, they have the canning infrastructure. And I think what we're seeing here is that they are preserving the raw material for their own exports because the ban is just on frozen sardine exports, not canned sardine exports. So Morocco is, is protecting its raw material and is able to maintain its industry. It's very meaningful, large industry of exporting canned sardines. So has that affected Fishwife personally, I guess? It has but not in the ways you would necessarily suspect because we have never sourced from the Moroccan sardine fishery We have been sourcing from the corner sardine fishery for about five years That at the time that we started selling sardines Cornish so Cornwall England It was the only MSC Marine Stewardship Council, certified sustainable fishery in Europe at the time. Then MSC is the most globally recognized certifying body for wild fisheries. And it's the one that Fishwife goes by. So we were sourcing from this Cornish sardine fishery. And then the Iberian sardine fishery was actually MSC certified, I believe, last year. And so we started sourcing from that fishery as well, which is really exciting. So we're sourcing from these two MSC certified fisheries, now the only certified sustainable sardine fisheries in Europe. So we weren't affected in terms of our raw material supply I being impacted. That being said, with, you know, so much inventory disappearing from the market, we saw our sardine sales starting and I would say December of last year, like start to go bananas I think it was kind of first two to three X velocities that we had been seeing before and it has sustained and gone even up to you know four or five X which is massive So you know getting calls from buyers that are retailers saying hey like my sardine shelf is completely wiped out. Can you step up and step in and and supplies with sardines? And, you know, I remember having this conversation with my with my head of sales was like, we can do it. We're going to have to air freight the product in order to get it there in time. You know, we usually try to send things by, quote unquote, slow ship, which is the most economical, also the most environmentally sustainable. And, you know, we had to make the hard decision of like, OK, are we OK with our gross margin being compressed by these airshipments? As you can imagine, they are extremely expensive in order to capture the demand, maybe introduce new customers to fishwife sardines. We did make that choice many, many times over for many retailers. and it's just been so much demand for the sardines that we just haven't seen go down. I think the crazy thing is we also saw this huge trend around sardines also kicking up at the same time. So I was going to say in the course of my due diligence for this podcast, I went on the canned sardines subreddit, a very active subreddit. And [35:00] There were a few people complaining about they couldn't find sardines at their local Trader Joe's or anything like that. And there were a bunch of posts also extolling the health benefits of sardines and making me think that maybe I need to try them. No, I think just from a health perspective, canned fish is just like a great way to get some protein. I put it in salads. I'll like put canned tuna in a salad or something like that. I'm a big advocate. First of all, I find it interesting that actually people evidently are, they want sardines so bad, they're willing to trade up. So some market goes away and then they'll go to the premium. But I want to talk a little bit more about when I think of the DTC brands that truly grew up in the golden age of Instagram, like the 2010s, it seemed like the big opportunity was find a product that's very expensive. Let's say like a Warby Parker. You don't really need to pay $350 for a pair of Luxottica glasses. We could build this for $20. We'll spend $10 on advertising, and then we'll sell the product for $100. I'm just making up these numbers And then we make in profit And it feels like there were just tons of companies and they came out of business school and stuff like that And they all identified all of these opportunities to find something that was premium and then like make a commodified version, cut out the middlemen, do some good branding, make it a little glossy, put it on Instagram, et cetera. It feels like this is the kind of the exact opposite where you have to invent a new category that doesn't really exist. Is this in part just like a function of like, The changing – I'm interested – like the media marketplace such as that playbook. Like now if you started the Warby Parker, rather than paying $20 for the Instagram ad, you'd pay $79 and left with a dollar margin or something like that. And that you actually have to like do something totally different in order to build a DTC brand in the 2020s. Yeah. I mean to be clear, DTC makes up about 20% of our business. So it is a minority channel for us. All right. even though it is incredibly, incredibly important for Fishwave. But it's certainly not the business that we're like building our economics around. You know, food businesses you're going to build in retail like that is where the volume is. That being said I think I mean doesn totally answer your question but like people want really quality products and people are willing to pay for them I mean that what we seen Yeah I think it some crazy stuff like 50 percent of the spending right now is being done by like I don know like five percent of our population Something crazy like that. People are willing to pay for a much higher quality product. first of all i think a lot of us were honestly burned with with some of those ddc brands where they're touting themselves as a low as a lower cost but equally high quality version as the like sort of traditional like whatever lake cruiset whatever you know um and maybe that didn't turn out to be the case for a lot of them i know i bought a bed frame from one of these companies and by god i was worst eight hundred dollars i ever spent can i just make a plug for brand though i just like they did something good and so i just feel like like 10 or 11 years ago we bought a uh an away suitcase and it like started breaking down recently and the zipper broke they replaced it for free and so like even i was 10 years old so i was like a pretty like i think it was probably a marginally less quality product than whatever the incumbent suitcase company was at the time but they but i was pretty surprised they actually uh replaced a broken suitcase i right there with you I own three away suitcases and they amazing There exceptions to the rule every time And I think with with Fishwife it like no we selling a super high quality product made by multigenerational European family owned canneries. Like it just is as good as it should be and needs to be. And we're not like doing any highfalutin new age stuff. I'm attracted to that. I think other people are attracted to that. just knowing like this truly is the just the highest quality product. We're not we're not cutting corners here to make a cheaper, cheaper product. This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Now with ChatGPT work. I'm Carol Masser. Globetrotters hunting for airfare bargains are in for a rude awakening as the days of stumbling across a cheap seat on a popular flight could soon disappear. Bloomberg's Juan Ha reports that airlines from Delta to Virgin Atlantic are adopting artificial intelligence to change seat prices more quickly by weighing dozens of variables in real time, helping capture more revenue while shrinking pricing prices, [40:00] upset once allowed travelers to find bargain fares. 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Plus you get expert help fast turnaround times and their 360 degree guarantee So you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right Whatever your goal 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match Explore the possibilities today at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, 4certain. Joe, you should make a way pay for their advertising. I know. So that was such a free giveaway, but it did happen. Okay, away from personal brand preferences And just going back to the sardines for a second. So there are a bunch of different like themes that I or keywords that I hear here. So one is more demand for sardines. Sardines are having a moment. The other one is climate change. And we talked about the shortage of plankton due to potentially warmer waters. We've also been hearing about overfishing for ages and ages and ages. And you often see these competing headlines where, you know, people say the world's fish population is in danger. And then two months later, it's like, oh, no, we figured out more sustainable ways of fishing. And this demand is or the supply is resilient and all of that. When you look at the sardine shortage, which of those factors matters the most to you in the current moment? I think as a headline the frustrating thing about seafood sustainability is that it is endlessly nuanced and it changing constantly So even with the sardine the Moroccan sardine situation they started to see a decline in the catch in 2023. It was about it was down about 46 percent. That's only three years ago. Like fisheries science moves somewhat slowly. Doing assessments of fisheries takes a really long time. So TLD are everything that's being talked about all of the theories that you mentioned tracy are just that they're theories and they're also like contributing factors to you know a much bigger picture that probably all of them are contributing not a single one and it's hard to tell to what degree you're just contributing so i'll like speak to these these theories that are that are currently in the conversation sure so the first that seems most likely is climate change generally so there There are warming waters in the mid-Atlantic that forage fish like sardines, like anchovies, like mackerel are very, very sensitive to water changes. So when the water temperature changes, they are likely to migrate to colder waters. So it might not even be there. [45:00] There are less sardines. It might simply be that the sardines have migrated somewhere, that the commercial fishermen have a lot of difficulty accessing. It could be deeper in the water. It could be further in the water. They're in a new location and it's not where the fishermen are used to catching. So that seems to be the most likely theory. Warmer waters can also trigger like unexpected changes in in the food web obviously everything in the ocean is connected and when you know water temperature changes it can mean also there are more predators that are actively catching fishing fishing in the area so like you said Tracy humans are not the only ones that are catching sardines so are tuna and other fish so there might just be more active predators in the area. There's also the plankton theory, which I think a lot of people are writing about, which is that the warmer water has triggered maybe less or less nutrient-dense, fatty caloric I hate a skinny plankton I know Absolutely I hate when you get served one of those But those can lead to leaner less fatty sardines which are the ones that folks are looking to catch So there are all these factors in combination definitely all tied up in climate change. Hard to know which is contributing the most. I think one thing that's interesting in these circumstances, from what I can tell, like overfishing is not not the main culprit. So I mentioned MSC earlier. That is, you know, the certifying body that we most lean on and look to. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, a bit of mouthful. They're also a very globally respected certifying body. And they're the ones that have given, I think this fishery currently has a yellow rating, which is not bad. But basically, their assessment is that the fishery is being well regulated. Strong enforcement is in place, which leads me to believe that it's less than overfishing and more of a climate issue. I think one thing that's really, really important to highlight is that when you see, you know, this is not a fishery shutdown situation. This is a like, you know, frozen starting export ban situation But when you do see you know a market being capped on a fishery it seems a little bit scary But that's actual responsible fisheries management in practice. That means that, you know, everyone's coming together and saying, hey, we're not seeing the amount of fish that we expected to see or not seeing the size of fish that we expected to find. We need to shut down the fishing season and allow the fishery to repopulate itself. And I think the amazing thing is there are so, so many examples of there being, you know, decline in catch, fisheries shutting down for between like three to five years. And in the span of that time, fully becoming certified sustainable again, aka able to fully repopulate and sustain themselves year over year. So I think that's really important for people to understand is like, don't freak out when you see when you see those empty shelves, like be happy that like people are putting these restrictions into place. Do you get inbound business inquiries from companies that are probably marginally or somewhat below your standards like canneries in China et cetera or there like look you can say like your inbox flooded with different B2B suppliers at different parts of the supply chain offering you stuff? Definitely. I would say, you know, my, more like my LinkedIn is flooded with that. I feel like somehow they're still not getting my email by and large, or maybe they're going straight to my spam, but yes, I don't spend that much time looking at them if I'm, if I'm being honest. What's happened to your own sardine pricing in this environment? Because as I understand it, you know, you have this premium product, which already is at a higher price point than some other equivalents. Does it go up further if people are, you know, struggling to find tin cans on the shelves of Trader Joe's or something like that? I do think that we expect our sardine prices to go up. It's like an active conversation. Again, all this is happening so quickly. But I think we can only assume that we will see and we will see prices go up as the two fisheries that we're sourcing from become more and more competitive. Then the other thing I want to ask again, as a non fish lover, will fish consumers, do they trade to other types of fish if they can't [50:00] sardines yes they do i don't know if i have really good data to share on it but we are definitely seeing folks come in in retail online starting with one species um and then over time expanding to the rest of ours it's a really good question i would say like maybe not anchovies because anchovies generally aren't looked at as like the protein replacement in your meal but between sardines mackerel tuna salmon trowel we're definitely seeing trading between species So obviously, like, to maintain a sort of valuable brand, you have to maintain the brand itself. Here is a question I've always wanted to ask. Whatever your goal, trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match. 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