Sardines La Belle Iloise

The fish are unloaded, checked and weighed. This is the only way to determine exactly how much time it will take to put in and cook. Then the sardines are pickled whole and as they are in brine.

The sardine women work on each sardine individually, beheading and gutting them carefully. They are then arranged on grids and carefully sprayed with water. By the way, 100% of the fish waste is recycled. Part goes to sport and professional fishermen who use it as bait. The rest is picked up by a specialist company.

The sardines are dried for several minutes in a tunnel with a ventilation system.

The sardines are fried in pure sunflower oil, which is regularly renewed to guarantee the product's consistent quality. The used frying oil is collected by a professional recycler and then used to heat greenhouses.

Still lying on their grid, the sardines are now being juiced. Juicing is a very important step in the whole quality process.

Depending on the recipe, the empty sardine cans are now filled with the right spices and aromatics.

Now the sardines are taken off the grid one by one, undergoing a careful selection process. Only the best make it into the can. Now the heads and tail fins are cut off before the fish are placed in the cans in opposite directions. This step requires great care from the sardine women, as they need to see at a glance which sardines together make a pretty can. The most experienced of them also remove the main bones at the same time, resulting in completely boneless sardines.

Depending on the recipe, the oil is then added to the preserves: fruity or semi-fruity extra virgin olive oil or pure peanut oil.

Now the preserves are hermetically sealed. To do this, the lid is crimped by a machine that closes between 300 and 500 cans per hour in this way.

The sealed preserves are guided through a tunnel in which they are first pre-rinsed and then thoroughly cleaned. They are then provided with various dates (best before date, etc.) to ensure their traceability.

In each such cycle (from delivery to sealing of the cans), the parameters of duration and temperature are documented and systematically verified. Each sterilization process is controlled in the laboratory by our quality assurance service.

The preserves are checked to ensure they meet our standards, are dated, well sealed and undamaged.