Let's begin our sardine reviews with the smallest and for the time being the loneliest group, our sardine tasting laggard collection,
Group C. The only member of this sorry club, thus far, is Brunswick Sardines in Olive Oil. These are Atlantic herring canned in Canada. Brunswick is owned by the Bumble Bee food group, which also distributes King Oscar sardines in the US. Brunswick has a
web site dedicated to their products with interesting information about the fishery as well as descriptions of their various products. It's not a great web site in terms of design, but it does have a certain endearing earnestness to it.
Unlike most brands these sardines come wrapped in a plastic covering with some spiffy art work. Your typical sardine wrapper, which is usually printed in color on cardboard stock, looks like it was designed as a junior high school art class project. This packaging was designed by a graphic artist and looks nice. Too bad it's plastic, the points scored for graphic aesthetics are lost for being environmentally unfriendly.
The wrapper itself has the usual dietary information. Serving size is truthfully labeled as one serving unlike several other brands. The contents are what they should be: sardines, olive oil and salt, nothing else.
OK, let's get to it the fish now, I'm getting hungry. The lid pulls off easily enough. Let's take a look inside the can. Inside are several large sardines. The appearance quality is OK. However, straight out of the can they lose badly on the taste test. The label says they are packed in olive oil, but it is at best a very indifferent olive oil, there is no love left in this oil. But worst of all they are soft, mushy and tasteless. In a word: yecchhh! After trying several cans the initial tasting is confirmed each time. I cannot recommend them. There are better choices out there and we'll take a look at some of them next time.
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