Anchovies come from temperate coastal waters around the world, with the largest populations concentrated off the coast of Peru, in the Mediterranean Sea, and along the northern coast of Spain. There are roughly 140 species in the anchovy family, but only a handful account for the vast majority of what ends up on your pizza or in that tin of olive oil-packed fillets. Where your anchovies come from depends largely on what kind you’re buying.
Major Species and Where They Live
The anchovy family (Engraulidae) spans every major ocean, but seven species in the genus Engraulis dominate commercial fishing. The Peruvian anchoveta lives in the cold, nutrient-dense waters off South America’s Pacific coast, from northern Peru down to southern Chile. The European anchovy inhabits the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Black Sea, and the eastern Atlantic from the Gulf of Cadiz up through the Bay of Biscay. The Japanese anchovy populates the waters around Japan and the western Pacific. The northern anchovy, sometimes called the California anchovy, ranges along North America’s Pacific coast. Other species fill out the map: the Argentine anchoveta in the southwestern Atlantic, the Australian anchovy in southern Australian waters, and the bay anchovy along the Gulf of Mexico and up to Cape Cod.
All anchovies are small, silvery schooling fish that rarely grow longer than six or seven inches. They thrive in waters where ocean currents push cold, nutrient-rich water toward the surface, a process called upwelling. This upwelling feeds massive blooms of plankton, which feed the tiny crustacean larvae that make up the bulk of an anchovy’s diet. Anchovies are almost entirely carnivorous, getting most of their nutrition from zooplankton rather than filtering plant matter as was once assumed.
Peru: The World’s Largest Anchovy Fishery
The Peruvian anchoveta is the single most harvested fish species on Earth. Its enormous population exists because of the Humboldt Current System, a band of cold, upwelling water that runs along South America’s western coast. These waters are extraordinarily productive, generating the plankton and zooplankton needed to sustain billions of anchoveta.
Peru set its first anchovy fishing quota for 2025 at 3 million metric tonnes for just the northern-central region. To put that in perspective, the average quota for Peru’s second annual fishing season alone has been about 2.19 million tonnes over the past decade. But these numbers fluctuate. A recent biomass survey found anchovy stocks at around 5.4 million tonnes, down from 7.18 million tonnes the previous year, prompting authorities to issue a cautious temporary quota of just 500,000 tonnes for the late-season harvest.
Most Peruvian anchoveta never end up on a plate as whole fish. The vast majority is processed into fishmeal and fish oil, which are used in animal feed, aquaculture, and nutritional supplements. Peru is the world’s leading fishmeal producer, and anchoveta drives that industry.
The Mediterranean and Spain’s Cantabrian Coast
If you’ve bought a premium tin of anchovies packed in olive oil, there’s a good chance they came from the European anchovy. This species spawns multiple times from spring through autumn across the Mediterranean, with peak spawning in June and July. Major fishing zones include the Adriatic Sea (where about 26,769 tonnes were caught in 2024), the western and central Mediterranean (over 26,000 tonnes landed in 2020), the Gulf of Lion off southern France, and the waters around the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The most prized European anchovies, however, come from Spain’s Cantabrian Sea along the country’s northern Atlantic coast. The Cantabrian Sea is cold with strong currents and rich plankton, producing anchovies with a fat profile that gives them a melt-in-your-mouth texture without being overly oily. Cantabrian anchovies are considered the gold standard for salt-cured fillets, and they carry a price tag to match: roughly €60 to €150 per kilogram, compared to far cheaper Pacific varieties where the raw fish can cost 5 to 10 times less.
The town of Santoña in Cantabria is the most famous production center, with a tradition stretching back over a century. The Basque coast produces anchovies that tend to be saltier and cured longer. L’Escala on Catalonia’s Costa Brava also has a century-old anchovy tradition with its own protected designation of origin, though the fish themselves typically come from the Cantabrian Sea and are prepared using Catalan methods influenced by Italian techniques.
How Anchovies Get From the Sea to the Tin
Fresh anchovies are delicate and spoil quickly, which is why most anchovies you encounter have been salt-cured. The traditional process starts the same day the fish are caught. Workers sort anchovies by size, then layer them in barrels or containers with coarse salt, alternating fish and salt with skin facing down. A thick salt layer on top seals out air. The fish then cure for 6 to 18 months, depending on the producer and the quality level. Premium Cantabrian anchovies typically cure for 12 to 18 months, while cheaper varieties may cure for as little as 6 months.
After curing, workers remove the spines, scrape off most of the salt to prevent the fillets from being overwhelmingly salty, and dry them. The finished fillets are packed in olive oil (or sometimes sunflower oil for budget brands) and sealed in tins or jars. Properly covered in oil and refrigerated, they keep for about two weeks once opened.
Not all commercial anchovies follow this artisanal process. Lower-cost anchovies from the Pacific are often processed faster with less curing time, which produces a fishier, less nuanced flavor. The species, the water temperature where the fish lived, the curing duration, and the packing oil all affect the final product.
An Ancient Food Source
Humans have been processing anchovies for at least 2,500 years. The ancient Greeks were making a fermented fish condiment from small fish as early as the fifth century BC. The Romans turned this into garum, one of the most important seasonings in their cuisine. Recipes called for the entrails of small fish like anchovies, mullets, and sprats to be salted and left in the sun for two to three months. Production facilities lined the Mediterranean coast, concentrated near the Strait of Gibraltar, along southern Spain, and at Lixus on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, which housed the largest installation in the western Mediterranean. Pompeii was famous for its garum. The Black Sea coast was another major production zone.
Spain’s dominance in the processed anchovy market, in other words, is nothing new. The country has sat at the center of small-fish preservation for millennia, and its modern Cantabrian anchovy industry is a direct descendant of that coastal tradition.
Why Anchovies Matter Beyond Your Plate
Anchovies occupy a critical middle position in ocean food webs. They convert the energy from tiny zooplankton into food for larger predators: jack mackerel, tuna, seabirds, dolphins, seals, and whales all depend on anchovy populations. When anchovy stocks decline, the ripple effects move up through the entire ecosystem.
This makes anchovy fishery management a high-stakes balancing act. Peru adjusts its quotas season by season based on biomass surveys, and the numbers swing considerably. Chile, the United States, Spain, and several African nations also maintain significant anchovy fisheries, with most reporting improved catch figures in early 2025. But climate patterns like El Niño can dramatically reduce anchovy populations by disrupting the cold-water upwelling that sustains their food supply, a reality that keeps fishery managers watching ocean temperatures as closely as they watch the fish themselves.