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Wild Planet

Wild Planet is a McKinleyville, California brand founded by Bill Carvalho, now owned by Italy's Bolton Group, and a leader on sourcing transparency — sardines packed simply in olive oil or water, wild-caught by Japanese fisheries (whole/traditional line) or Moroccan fisheries (skinless/boneless line).

At a glance

Notable facts

• Founded by Bill Carvalho, who had run seafood distributor Carvalho Fisheries since 1990 and debuted a Carvalho Family Albacore brand in 2001 before launching Wild Planet.
• Acquired by Italy's Bolton Group in August 2021, per Bolton's own press release and multiple trade-press reports (SeafoodSource, Just Food, Italianfood.net).
• Traditional whole sardines (plain, lemon, water, no-salt-water) are sourced from the North Pacific Ocean via Japanese fisheries, using single-species purse seine and drift-net methods with no Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs).
• Skinless & boneless sardine fillets are sourced from the Atlantic Ocean via Moroccan fisheries, also without FADs.
• All sardine SKUs are Non-GMO Project Verified, Kosher, and gluten-free.
• The brand's /pages/press page functions as a media-coverage showcase (40+ outlet mentions from 2021-2025) rather than a downloadable press/media kit; no brand-asset or logo-download resource was found on the site.

Behind the tin

The brand is owned by Bolton Group.

Origin

Wild Planet traces back to Bill Carvalho, who spent 14 years running seafood distributor Carvalho Fisheries before debuting a family-branded albacore tuna at San Francisco's Fancy Food Show in 2001. In 2004 (Wild Planet's own account) or 2005 (per a Forbes profile), Carvalho founded Wild Planet Foods around a broader mission: sourcing transparency and bycatch-minimizing fishing methods, using single-species purse seine and drift-net gear without Fish Aggregating Devices.

The brand built its reputation on that sourcing story as much as the product itself, eventually reaching national distribution through club-store partnerships starting around 2010. In August 2021, Italy's Bolton Group — a major player in global tinned-seafood brands — acquired Wild Planet outright, folding it into a portfolio built around sustainable tuna sourcing. Today Wild Planet's sardine range splits in two: traditional whole sardines caught by Japanese fisheries in the North Pacific (plain, lemon, water, and no-salt variants), and skinless-and-boneless fillets sourced from Moroccan Atlantic fisheries — all Non-GMO Verified, kosher, and gluten-free.

Products

Compiled from public reporting and the brand's own materials. Spot something we got wrong? Tell us.
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