The Best Tinned Tuna in the UK
Most people's experience of tinned tuna is brine-packed, pale, and forgettable — a protein source rather than a food worth thinking about. It is also almost entirely unrepresentative of what a great tin of tuna actually is. The gap between a supermarket own-label tuna in brine and a Cantabrian albacore packed the same day it was caught in good olive oil is wider than in almost any other tinned fish category. Which makes it the category where buying well makes the most obvious difference.
Here is what separates good from great, and the specific tins worth knowing.
What to look for
Species is the first consideration. Most cheap tinned tuna uses skipjack — a smaller, more abundant species with a stronger, coarser flavour. Premium tinned tuna uses albacore, also known as bonito del norte in its Cantabrian form — a larger, milder, more delicate fish that produces a firmer, cleaner tin. The Cantabrian Sea off the Bay of Biscay produces the most prized albacore in the world, and the producers who work with it know it.
Oil versus brine is the second. Brine-packed tuna loses the fat that carries flavour during processing and emerges drier and flatter as a result. A tin of good albacore in proper olive oil retains its texture, keeps its flavour, and gives you oil worth tipping onto bread or into a dressing rather than discarding. For any preparation where the tuna is the centrepiece — a niçoise, a plate with bread, a simple salad — oil is the only sensible choice.
The cut determines price and occasion. Standard tuna fillet or loin is versatile — it flakes well, works in pasta and salads, and performs reliably across most preparations. Ventresca — the belly cut — is something else: richer, more marbled, softer in texture, and the part of the fish serious buyers seek out specifically. Use ventresca where the tuna is the point. Use standard fillet where it is an ingredient.
The best everyday tuna: Rockfish
Rockfish's Cantabrian tuna is the tin to reach for first. Caught in the Bay of Biscay — the same waters that produce the benchmark albacore of the conservas world — and processed with the same standard Rockfish applies to everything in its range. Firm, clean in flavour, and notably different from anything you might have tried under the tuna category before. The Cantabrian provenance is not a marketing note; it is genuinely the reason the fish tastes as it does. This is the everyday tin: the one to keep in the cupboard and reach for in a niçoise, a pasta, or eaten straight on bread with a squeeze of lemon.
Browse the tuna collection.
The French Atlantic option: Berthe
Berthe has been operating on the French Atlantic coast since 1880 — one of the oldest canneries producing at this level anywhere in Europe. Their tuna range brings a different regional tradition to the same category: Atlantic tuna from French waters, packed with a restraint and refinement that is distinctly French in character. The olive oil version is the classic — clean, rounded, the fish forward rather than the oil. The lemon version is worth knowing alongside it: a brighter, more aromatic tin that suits eating directly at the table or in a simple salad where the acidity of the lemon does the work a dressing otherwise would.
Two different preparations, same high standard. Both in the tuna collection.
When to go for ventresca
Ventresca — the tuna belly — is not an everyday tin. It is richer and more delicate than standard fillet, best eaten where the quality of the cut can be fully appreciated: straight from the tin on bread, in a niçoise where it holds together rather than flaking into the dressing, or at the table as something to share. For the full explanation of what ventresca is and how to eat it, see What Is Ventresca Tuna?.
José Gourmet's ventresca brings a richer, more assertive depth — the Portuguese Atlantic conservas approach at its most considered. Açor's version, from the Azores specifically, is cleaner and slightly more delicate in character — the colder, deeper waters of the island archipelago producing something a little lighter in tone. Both are in the tuna collection.
How to use them
For the full range of preparations the tuna collection opens up: the niçoise that shows what oil-packed tuna actually is — Salade Niçoise: The Proper Version. The Italian weeknight pasta — Pasta al Tonno: The Other Tuna Pasta. The ten-minute Mediterranean pantry salad — Tuna and White Bean Salad. All three preparations benefit from a proper tin in a way that a brine-packed supermarket tuna simply does not.
The verdict
Start with Rockfish for the everyday tin — Cantabrian albacore in olive oil at the standard the category is capable of. Reach for Berthe when you want a different regional tradition alongside it: olive oil for a classic result, lemon for something brighter. Reserve the ventresca — José Gourmet or Açor — for when the tuna is the occasion rather than the ingredient.
Browse the full tuna collection to see what is currently in stock.