Illustrated Coastal scene inspired by Maine, near Prospect Harbor.

Beach Cliff

Prospect Harbor, Maine, USA

Beach Cliff is a budget-tier canned sardine brand owned by Bumble Bee Foods, historically packed at the Stinson Canning cannery in Prospect Harbor, Maine — the last sardine cannery in the United States, which closed in 2010.

At a glance

Country	USA
Region	Maine
City	Prospect Harbor
Founded	1968 1968 is when the Beach Cliff brand name was first used, per a Working Waterfront Maine history of the Stinson Canning Company — not necessarily the founding of the underlying cannery operation, which dates to 1906 (as E.T. Russell & Co.) or 1927 (Stinson family acquisition).
Company	Subsidiary brand
Price	$ — budget
Species	Sprattus sprattus (European sprat) — named on the label
Owner	FCF Co., Ltd.

Notable facts

The Beach Cliff name traces to Stinson Canning's Prospect Harbor, Maine plant, where larger Danish-sourced fish began being packed under the Beach Cliff brand in 1968 (Working Waterfront archive).
The Prospect Harbor cannery — by 2010 the last operating sardine cannery in the US — was closed by then-owner Bumble Bee Foods in April 2010, ending domestic sardine canning; the closure cost about 130 jobs.
Beach Cliff, LLC is stated to be a subsidiary of Bumble Bee Foods on the brand's own site (beachcliff.info).
Current Beach Cliff cans are confirmed 'Product of Poland' across major U.S. retailer listings (Food Lion among others) — production moved overseas after the Maine plant closed, and the fish inside is sprat (Sprattus sprattus), not a true sardine.
Bumble Bee Foods itself was acquired out of bankruptcy by Taiwan's FCF Co., Ltd. in 2020.

Behind the tin

The brand is owned by FCF Co., Ltd..

Origin

Beach Cliff's story is really the story of Prospect Harbor, Maine — once home to the last operating sardine cannery in the United States. The plant traced back to E.T. Russell & Co. in 1906, was bought by the Stinson and Wass families in 1927, and unified as the Stinson Canning Company in 1975. In 1968, Stinson Jr. began sourcing larger, Denmark-caught fish and packing them under a new name: Beach Cliff.

The brand outlived the cannery. Connors Brothers bought the plant in 2000 (running it as "Stinson 2000"), and Bumble Bee Foods later took over, renaming it Stinson Seafood. Citing federal herring catch limits, Bumble Bee closed the Prospect Harbor plant in April 2010 — ending roughly a century of sardine canning on the Maine coast and costing the town about 130 jobs.

Beach Cliff survived as a Bumble Bee subsidiary brand, but production moved overseas; cans on shelves today are labeled "Product of Poland." It remains one of the most widely available, budget-priced sardine brands in American grocery stores, spanning oil, water, mustard, tomato, and hot-sauce variants — a low-price legacy of a fishery that no longer exists at home.