Roland Foods Flat Anchovy Fillets Packed in Olive Oil, Wild Caught from Spain, 28 OZ Can

Very pleased with the quality of these anchovies as well as the price. I've tried many different kinds of anchovies trying to find the product that best suited my needs, and I think that I've finally found it. Most recently I was very disappointed by the Angostina Recci (sp?) salt packed anchovies. Some people love them but I found them too fishy, too tinny, and way, way too much work for the end result. My favorite anchovies are the Ortiz in the small jar, and while these aren't quite as good they are very close at a fraction of the price. In general Roland makes very high quality products in my experience. However, I've had the small cans of Roland anchovies and these are superior. They are very firm, do not turn to mush when extracted, and have a clean flavor with minimal bones. Another big advantage here is that the large, flat tin with a plastic lid allows easy extraction. It can be a bit messy as the oil runs down the side, so I wipe the tin before returning to the refrigerator. The small jars used by some brands make it very difficult to extract fish. That's especially true if cold but even when warm the fish can tend to stick together and come out in pieces. These are stacked in a cross-hatch and really easy to remove from the tin. A note on the oil used here: many are asking if it's EVOO, and it's not. If you want to use the oil itself in recipes I'd actually recommend pouring the oil off this tin and pouring in your choice of extra virgin. However, the taste of the fish is quite clean with no "off" oil flavor as you can get from products packed in lesser oils. Also, because it's not extra virgin it doesn't solidify so much in the refrigerator which can make it difficult to extract the fish unless brought to room temp (or close anyway) first. Since I often use just a couple of anchovies, this is ideal for me and doesn't require lead time to allow them to warm before use. Overall I'm very pleased with the quality and price of these fish. Delivery was in one day(!) as well.

After doing lots of research, I chose to buy these tins of anchovies. They are delicious and well-preserved and are good value for the money. The tins are gigantic and both of them had the plastic lids mentioned by others. The "best by" date on mine is 4/13/21, about 11 months from now. I was concerned because of reviews mentioning that people had gotten cans of "mush." Thankfully, mine did not! I did some research, and discovered that canned anchovies are "semi-conserved" by use of salt and olive oil. They are not sterilized by cooking as are most other canned foods, so they must be stored at 60 degrees or lower even though the can is still unopened. If they have turned to mush or the can is "puffy" looking, that means they have not been properly stored or transported. There is a non-harmful bacteria that survives in the can that can cause this, but it is not supposed to be harmful. Heat will hasten the growth of this bacteria. So this is why the shelf-life is not so long for canned anchovies. In our home, "under 60 degrees" means they are going into the refrigerator, both unopened and opened cans. The can I opened had been refrigerated overnight. The olive oil was clear, not cloudy, even after refrigeration. Not sure why that is. Perhaps the salt has an effect of inhibiting the oil from solidifying in the same way that it lowers the temperature at which water freezes? There is a lot of olive oil inside (which makes sense so that the anchovies remain submerged in oil so as not to be exposed to air). Another reviewer commented on the 14 oz. weight including the olive oil. I don't think it's unfair to include the weight of the olive oil as it's probably more expensive than the anchovies. It is, after all, being sold as "anchovies in olive oil," but that reviewer makes a good point not to expect 14 oz. of drained anchovies as you may be getting substantially less than that. Nonetheless, this is a lot of anchovies! I plan to consume these over a period of several weeks, so I transferred the anchovies (without the oil in which they were packed) to a sealed plastic container and covered them with my own extra virgin olive oil (making sure the anchovies are fully covered by oil and were not exposed to air for very long). I chose these anchovies rather than some more expensive ones in glass jars, but will probably be tempted to try some other brands eventually. However, for now, I'm quite happy with these!

Pretty good and consistent quality considering its price point but several orders over the past 18 months have found anchovies being delivered from Amazon being up to a year or more beyond the expiration or "sell by" date resulting in cans which, when opened, are found to be badly deteriorated. Roland is partly responsible given that they show the expiration date on the can with an easily understood numeric code for month and date, i.e, 05 23 for May 23rd, but sadly use a letter code for the year. Hence, I just received two 14 oz cans with code U 05 23 with the U equating to 2020 or May 23, 2020. That's some seriously expired product and, with the potential of less than ideal warehouse storage at 60 degrees or below as stipulated on the can in addition to rotating stock, I've received anchovies which were literally mush when they were opened. As usual, Amazon is great in crediting back the purchase. In some cases the product is edible even though it may be a bit beyond the expire date but not up to expected freshness. Storage at cool temps combined with careful attention at the Amazon warehouse for stock rotation can help alleviate this issue.