Indian oil sardine

A true sardine of the family Clupeidae and one of the most-eaten sardines on Earth — the mainstay of India's Malabar-coast fishery — yet a fish that almost never meets a can.

About the fish

• One of the planet's biggest sardine fisheries: Indian oil-sardine landings peaked around 390,000 tonnes in 2012 (CMFRI landings data), driven overwhelmingly by the Malabar coast.
• A warm-water cousin of the European sardine (Sardina pilchardus): oilier in season, softer-fleshed, and moving in enormous, famously unpredictable schools.
• Landings swing between boom and bust decades, tied to monsoon strength and plankton blooms — volatility that has always undermined cannery economics on the Malabar coast.
• Almost never canned: India's catch is eaten fresh the same day (beach auctions at dawn, curries by evening) or preserved by sun-drying, salting and, in the modern era, retort-pouch curries — so Western-style tins of Sardinella longiceps are genuine rarities.
• An increasing share of bulk landings is diverted to fishmeal for farmed shrimp and poultry, a decade-long controversy among Indian marine researchers as local prices climb in lean years.

Brands using Indian oil sardine in this directory