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Wild Planet

Wild Planet is a McKinleyville, California brand founded by Bill Carvalho, now owned by Italy's Bolton Group, and a leader on sourcing transparency — sardines packed simply in olive oil or water, wild-caught by Japanese fisheries (whole/traditional line) or Moroccan fisheries (skinless/boneless line).

At a glance

Notable facts

• Founded by Bill Carvalho, who had run seafood distributor Carvalho Fisheries since 1990 and debuted a Carvalho Family Albacore brand in 2001 before launching Wild Planet.
• Acquired by Italy's Bolton Group in August 2021, per Bolton's own press release and multiple trade-press reports (SeafoodSource, Just Food, Italianfood.net).
• Traditional whole sardines (plain, lemon, water, no-salt-water) are sourced from the North Pacific Ocean via Japanese fisheries, using single-species purse seine and drift-net methods with no Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs).
• Skinless & boneless sardine fillets are sourced from the Atlantic Ocean via Moroccan fisheries, also without FADs.
• All sardine SKUs are Non-GMO Project Verified, Kosher, and gluten-free.
• The brand's /pages/press page functions as a media-coverage showcase (40+ outlet mentions from 2021-2025) rather than a downloadable press/media kit; no brand-asset or logo-download resource was found on the site.

Origin

Wild Planet traces back to Bill Carvalho, who spent 14 years running seafood distributor Carvalho Fisheries before debuting a family-branded albacore tuna at San Francisco's Fancy Food Show in 2001. In 2004 (Wild Planet's own account) or 2005 (per a Forbes profile), Carvalho founded Wild Planet Foods around a broader mission: sourcing transparency and bycatch-minimizing fishing methods, using single-species purse seine and drift-net gear without Fish Aggregating Devices.

The brand built its reputation on that sourcing story as much as the product itself, eventually reaching national distribution through club-store partnerships starting around 2010. In August 2021, Italy's Bolton Group — a major player in global tinned-seafood brands — acquired Wild Planet outright, folding it into a portfolio built around sustainable tuna sourcing. Today Wild Planet's sardine range splits in two: traditional whole sardines caught by Japanese fisheries in the North Pacific (plain, lemon, water, and no-salt variants), and skinless-and-boneless fillets sourced from Moroccan Atlantic fisheries — all Non-GMO Verified, kosher, and gluten-free.

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