Four Indonesian men spent months on Chinese-owned fishing vessels in international waters, hauling albacore they say ended up in cans on American grocery shelves. In March 2025, they sued the company that sold it, alleging in federal court in San Diego that they were beaten, underfed, denied medical care and never paid for their work. On November 12, 2025, a judge refused to throw the case out.
The label on those cans was Bumble Bee, and it is the tuna I would leave on the shelf. The flavor argument alone would put it near the bottom of any tasting. The court file is what drops it to dead last.
8. Bumble Bee Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water
Start with what is actually in the can, because that is bad enough. The albacore comes out pale and swimming in water, and it tastes like sawdust, a flat woody note that matches its dry texture instead of covering it. In a worst-to-best tasting of fourteen cans, it placed twelfth, beaten by every store brand in the field.
The lawsuit is the reason it finishes last here. Plaintiffs Akhmad, Angga, Muhammad Sahrudin and Muhammad Syafi’i filed on March 12, 2025 under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a law Congress updated in 2008 to let survivors sue companies that knowingly benefited from forced labor. Their complaint alleges recruitment agents pushed them into contracts that left them in debt before they ever set foot on a boat, one of them carrying a $20,000 penalty for quitting, and that the albacore they caught was processed and packed into Bumble Bee cans sold to U.S. retailers.
The conditions described in the filing are grim. Captains beat the crew, the complaint says, gave them too little food, and sent men back to work through serious injuries without medical care. Three of the four fishers say they ate bait fish to avoid going hungry. One says he lost part of a finger to a rope; another says he treated severe burns with Vaseline. Angga, who says he was never paid for the months he worked, has said Americans need to know the cruelty and exploitation behind the tuna they buy and eat.
The court has not found Bumble Bee liable of anything. In May 2026 it threw out the plaintiffs’ injunctive-relief claim for good, and in June it refused Bumble Bee both a reconsideration and an early appeal, leaving the trafficking and negligence claims heading into discovery. What the November 12 order did was let both the trafficking claim and a California negligence claim proceed, finding the complaint plausibly alleged the company knew or should have known about forced labor in its supply chain, partly because Bumble Bee said it reviewed vessel operations under its own Social Responsibility Program. In its June 2, 2025 motion to dismiss, the company said it “unequivocally condemns forced labor and takes allegations of forced labor in its supply chain seriously,” said it instructed suppliers to stop buying from the vessels named once it learned of the allegations, and argued the plaintiffs’ theory would let any manufacturer be sued over conduct by foreign actors anywhere in a supply chain.
Bumble Bee’s recent history is not otherwise reassuring. The brand was caught up in the 2017 tuna price-fixing scandal and filed for bankruptcy in 2019. Dry, woody tuna from a company with that paperwork is an easy pass.
7. Chicken of the Sea 25% Less Sodium Chunk Light Tuna in Water
This is the can that finished absolute last on flavor in that fourteen-brand tasting, and it earned it. Peel the lid and you get a puddle of water with pink shreds of fish floating in it. On the tongue it somehow reads bone-dry despite being packed in liquid, and the flavor is simply gone. Mayonnaise will not fix it, and neither will melted cheese.
The label does not tell you what you are eating, either. It advertises 25% less sodium but never names the species, which in practice almost always means skipjack. That vagueness runs through the rest of the line: reviewers who have worked through Chicken of the Sea’s sardines in sauces keep landing on the same complaints, thin watery texture, a bitter edge, and cans that are inconsistent enough that the same product can be fine one week and inedible the next. In a broader ranking of canned fish brands, it came in second to last.
It is cheap. That is the entire case for it, and the store brands below are cheap too.
6. Safe Catch Elite Solid Wild Tuna
Safe Catch is the most confidently marketed can in the aisle. The tin claims the lowest mercury of any brand, says every single tuna is tested, and promises 100% sustainable wild-caught fish packed with no water, no oil and no preservatives. It also costs noticeably more than a standard five-ounce can of skipjack.
The eating experience does not justify the receipt. The pinkish-grey chunks taste metallic and aggressively salty, and the aftertaste is worse than the first bite, a lingering fishiness rather than a clean tuna flavor. Credit where it is due: the texture is not dry, which is more than most water-packed cans manage.
Paying a premium for label copy is the worst deal in canned seafood. If the fish tastes like the tin, none of the certifications on the front matter.
5. StarKist Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water
StarKist has been the top-selling name in tinned fish for years, which means an enormous number of Americans have accepted its baseline as what tuna tastes like. It is fine. That is the ceiling. The solid albacore comes out as a pale slab in a moderate amount of water, breaks into thick chunks, and still manages to be dry. The flavor is blandly salty with a faint metallic note underneath, though it does at least taste like tuna, which is more than Bumble Bee’s albacore achieves.
The chunk light is where the complaints pile up. Shoppers describe an off, faintly stale flavor in cans nowhere near their expiration date, and enough of them have sworn off the brand’s canned fish entirely that one thirteen-brand ranking put StarKist dead last. Bone fragments turn up in shopper reviews often enough to be worth knowing about, and customers who flagged them say what they got back was an apology letter and coupons for more tuna.
StarKist was swept into the same conspiracy, pleading guilty in 2018 and paying a $100 million fine. Buy it if it is the only thing on the shelf and your recipe leans hard on celery, relish and mayo to do the talking.
4. Genova Albacore Tuna in Olive Oil
Genova sells the Mediterranean fantasy: yellowfin and albacore in olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, Calabrian chili oil, lemon and Herbs de Provence, garlic and Tuscan herb. The oil does real work on texture. The albacore flakes into rich, glossy chunks and never reads as dry.
Flavor is where it stalls. Mild verging on bland, and it is the one can in a fourteen-brand lineup that was hard to tell apart from canned chicken. For a product priced above the water-packed crowd, tasting like poultry is a problem.
Then there is the recall. In January 2026, Tri-Union Seafoods warned that a third-party distributor had inadvertently released cans meant to stay quarantined under a February 2025 recall. The original problem was a manufacturing defect in the easy-open pull-tab lid that could compromise the seal over time, letting the can leak or, worse, letting in Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria behind potentially fatal botulism poisoning. Botulism risk is the reason the FDA gave for both announcements. The affected stock reached Meijer in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, Giant Food in Maryland and Virginia, and Safeway, Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions in California, nine states in all. It covers four-packs of five-ounce Genova Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil, UPC 4800073265, can codes S84N D2L and S84N D3L, plus five-ounce single cans of Genova Yellowfin Tuna in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Sea Salt. Regulators said not to eat it even if it looks and smells normal, and to return it for a refund. No illnesses were reported when the first recall went out. Genova is a Tri-Union Seafoods brand, which puts it under the same corporate roof as Chicken of the Sea.
3. Good & Gather Solid White Albacore Tuna in Water
Target’s house albacore carries the Marine Stewardship Council stamp at a price that undercuts the national brands, and it finished seventh out of fourteen in that head-to-head, which is mid-table rather than embarrassing. Beating Genova, Wild Planet and Whole Foods’ own skipjack on a store-brand budget is a decent result.
Nobody is going to eat this straight from the tin and call it lunch. What it will do is disappear into a casserole, a melt or a mayo-heavy salad without dragging anything down, and it costs less than the labels with a scandal attached. Store brands are quietly winning this category, and this is the proof.
2. 365 by Whole Foods Market Unsalted Skipjack Tuna in Water
Skipjack is the darker, more nuanced meat, and this can uses it well. Of the entire field, it delivered the best genuinely meaty tuna flavor, with only a slight metallic note to argue about. It is certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council and 100% pole-and-line caught, which is the slow, selective way to fish and the version that leaves the least collateral damage in the net.
Two caveats. The water packing pulls the texture drier than it needs to be, so drain it well. And it is unsalted, meaning you are responsible for seasoning it, which is a feature if you cook and a nuisance if you were planning to eat it with a fork over the sink.
For a cheesy tuna melt or anything where the fish has to hold its own against bread and cheddar, this is the best value in the aisle.
1. Wild Planet Albacore Wild Tuna
Wild Planet wins because it is the only can here that does not ask you to fix it first. There is no liquid to pour off, because the fish is hand-packed with no added water or oil and sits in its own juices. The slab breaks into visible, distinct chunks, it is not dry despite having nothing added, the salt is balanced against the fish rather than standing in for it, and the metallic note that haunts almost every other brand is barely detectable.
The fishing is pole and line, 100% of it, the same method behind the Whole Foods skipjack. The catch is price: this is one of the most expensive cans on the shelf, and it is worth remembering that the water you drain out of a cheaper can is part of what you paid for.
Treated as an ingredient, it shines in something like tuna patties. Treated as a snack, it is the one can in this group that eats acceptably straight from the tin. If you buy tuna once a month, buy this. If you buy it weekly, buy the 365 skipjack and season it yourself. Either way, walk past the Bumble Bee.
