Tinned Fish Club started in a Boston apartment in 2020. Today a husband-and-wife team runs it from Philadelphia. The club is the same: three tins from around the world every month, and a card that tells you what to do with them.
In 2020, Nick Pontacoloni kept seeing tinned fish on wine bar menus around Boston. He had grown up on canned tuna and not much else. His wife Anastasia had grown up in Ukraine, where a good tin was nothing unusual. It showed up on the holiday table.
So they went looking. They found Portuguese sardines, Japanese mackerel, and Baltic sprats in the specialty European and Asian groceries around Boston, where few Americans ever shopped. Every tin had a cannery behind it, a coastline, and often a hundred years of history. Nick kept asking the same question: how does nobody here know about this?
In August 2020 they launched a simple website as a side project. Orders came in right away.
At first they bought specialty store shelves nearly empty. Then they drove to Fall River, where one of the country’s largest Portuguese grocery distributors agreed to back two people with a sardine habit. The club became that distributor’s biggest tinned fish customer.
Boxes were packed in the apartment, then in Anastasia’s mother’s basement. At the peak, more than 1,500 boxes a month were packed and taped there by hand. In early 2025 the club finally moved into a proper warehouse.
In much of Eastern Europe, a tin of sprats on dark bread belongs on the celebration table. Anastasia grew up with that. So did Vicky, whose family comes from Eastern Europe. Both women brought something to this club that most American food brands lack: tinned fish is special, not a pantry backup.
We kept that idea.
In August 2026, Nick and Anastasia handed the club to us, Dave and Vicky.
Dave has spent his career helping small online businesses grow. At Tinned Fish Club, he handles the site, the members, and anything that needs building. He’s also the one eating the leftover tins at midnight.
Vicky curates the box. Every week she goes through supplier lists of hundreds of tins, picks the contenders, and runs taste tests with friends and family before anything is shipped to you. She also writes the recipe cards.
We’re raising three kids in Philadelphia, and yes, they have opinions about sardines.
We’re a small family business, and we read every email. Write to us at hello@tinnedfishclub.com. We’d love to hear what you’re eating.
Dave & Vicky