Why Grocery Stores Are Running Out of Canned Sardines

I eat sardines with pasta or rice two or three times a week — cheap protein, minimal effort, the kind of staple you stop thinking about until it's gone. My wife texted me from Costco a couple of weeks back asking if we needed anything. I replied that we were out of sardines. She never saw it.

Fast forward to this past weekend, driving back from a birthday celebration in Seattle. On the way home, we stopped at the Trader Joe's in Issaquah to restock groceries, and the sardine shelf sat completely empty. I figured it was a fluke — one store, one bad week. Then I made a Costco run last night back here in the valley, and found the exact same gap on the shelf.

I tracked down a stock manager, who told me flatly: "We've been out of sardines for the last four or five days. We don't get a huge demand for sardines here, but we're out and have put an order in for more."

It Turns Out This Is Happening Everywhere

A quick search confirmed it wasn't just bad luck. Sardines are caught in a genuine supply crunch right now, and it's bigger than one warehouse running low.

Warming ocean water has disrupted the plankton sardines feed on, shrinking the fish and cutting overall catch numbers. Morocco — the world's top sardine exporter — saw its own landings drop nearly 46% and responded by halting frozen sardine exports back in February, prioritizing its own food supply over foreign canneries in Spain and Portugal that depend on those imports.

Add Social Media to the Mix

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Meanwhile, sardines have somehow become a genuine social media trend — "sardinemaxxing," people are calling it, praising the fish as a cheap, high-protein health food. That viral demand collided directly with a shrinking supply chain, and empty shelves were the predictable result.

For anyone in Washington who relies on sardines the way I do, patience may be the only real fix. My advice: grab a few tins whenever you find them stocked, because there's no telling how long this shortage will stick around.