Lips are smacking in anticipation here at the cannery as we put the final touches on our limited edition can of British Conservas for International Women’s Day 2026.
We bring out a special can for International Women’s Day every year, not only because we believe in the fundamental human rights of women and girls (whoop! whoop!), but because British fish and seafood have long-established links to female entrepreneurship and labour, and we want to celebrate the amazing community of women working in the industry today.
For centuries, women were considered to be a source of bad luck on boats (apparently, they were too distracting to the crew, and could anger the ‘sea gods’ with their beauty. We’ve all been there!) But women were thought to be safe enough to work on shore, so while the menfolk fished at sea, women processed the catch and sold fish at market. Fun fact: the term ‘fishwife’ is still used today, code for a noisy, foul-mouthed woman, and it comes from all the shouting women had to do at market to sell their fish.
Today, women are allowed to sail and even work on boats. But it’s still the work of just a few highly-skilled women to process, by which we mean de-head, gut, and fillet, nearly all of the Cornish sardines we preserve and can at Sea Sisters. We’ll be introducing you to a couple of them, as well as our all-girl (almost) cannery team here in Bridport, on International Women’s Day (March 8th).
Until then, we’re tucking in our napkins and sitting nicely until we can crack open our limited edition IWD British Conservas cans. In previous years, we’ve made IWD cans with Norfolk whelks in kimchi sauce and Welsh cockles in chilli and garlic. This year, we’ve craft-canned the best Cornish sardines, high in hormone-supporting omega-3s and collagen-boosting lysine; the perfect protein choice for all our wonderful women. And we’ve paired them with an incredible ginger, chilli and lime sauce by British-Lao chef and all-round superwoman, Yoyo.
We’ll let you know as soon as our IWD cans are available to order. Until then why not try some of our previous IWD special releases here.