Les Mouettes d'Arvor

Canned in Concarneau on the Brittany coast, Les Mouettes d'Arvor fish comes from the Gonidec cannery, founded there in 1959. It packs sardines, tuna and mackerel, plain and flavored.

About Les Mouettes d'Arvor

Based in
Concarneau, Brittany, France
Founded
1959
Known for
tinned sardines, mackerel and tuna

Les Mouettes d'Arvor is the brand of the Gonidec cannery in the fishing port of Concarneau. Jacques Gonidec founded it in 1959 in a small workshop in Passage-Lanriec, and in 1995 the cannery moved to a new plant in the town. It cans sardines, tuna and mackerel, packed by hand.

The range also includes flavored tins. Tinned sardines can be eaten straight from the tin on buttered toast, folded into pasta with lemon and parsley, or set out with bread, radishes and a cold white wine.

Les Mouettes d'Arvor questions

How are Les Mouettes d'Arvor sardines prepared?

The Gonidec cannery works with the sardine season, which starts in spring off Brittany. Each fish goes into iced salt water, workers cut off the head and clean it by hand, and the sardines drain overnight so they do not burst in hot oil. They are fried, packed by hand head to tail and covered with oil, the old French method; most canneries elsewhere steam-cook the fish after canning.

What does the name Les Mouettes d'Arvor mean?

Mouettes is French for seagulls. Arvor is an old Breton word for the coastal regions of Brittany, the parts by the sea, as opposed to argoad, the inland, wooded country. So the name means roughly the seagulls of coastal Brittany, a fit for a cannery in Concarneau, a fishing port on the Breton coast.

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