Tuna Revolution: Israeli Company Invents First Spurt-Free Can

You don’t read too much in the news about breakthroughs in the world of food canning.

That’s because there aren’t many. Food was first preserved in cans in 1810, the first can opener was invented 50 years later (absolutely true!) and easy-open cans (with a built-in ring pull) arrived in the 1960s.

And that’s about it. Except that Caniel, an Israeli company, has now added a revolutionary tweak to the classic tuna can which, they say, will put an end to the dreaded drip.

It’s designed a “spurt-free” can that lets you gently pump the base to squeeze out the oil, rather than pressing in the lid and draining it all over your hands (and clothes).

To the untrained eye it looks just like a standard tuna can. But the metal base is elasticated. So unlike a rigid base, it has a button in the middle which yields to pressure, allowing you to gently squeeze out the oil.

Open the can a little with the easy-open ring pull, turn it upside-down, pump the elastic base four or five times and the tuna is ready and drained, without your hands touching the oil and getting smelly.

“Using a tuna can is a messy business,” says Lior Yemini, the company’s CEO. “Our patented solution is a hassle-free solution.”

The new can bases take longer to manufacture, need to be made with great precision and cost more as a result. But Yemini says customers will be prepared to pay extra.

“We are looking for added value, for innovation to change the market,” he says. “We had research carried out (by marketing data company Kantar) which found that customers would be prepared to pay 15 percent to 20 percent more for tuna in cans like ours.”

The top and the body of the can remain unchanged. Only the base is different.

Canning factories fill the cans lid-down, add oil, seal on the base (and then cook the tuna in the can). It’s very straightforward for them to incorporate Caniel’s elasticated base into their process.

“They don’t need to change anything in their production lines,” says Yemini. “They can work in the same way they work today. With a small adjustment they can adopt our technology and deliver added value.”

“As far as tuna fillers (the factories that can tuna) are concerned, this allows them to increase sales, increase market share, and of course, improve their innovation image.

“There is a lot of interest. We are speaking to tuna companies all over the world from Latin America, from Europe, from Spain and Italy,” says Yemini. “We are working in a very traditional industry and there are not many innovations.”

You won’t yet have seen the spurt-free can in stores. Caniel says it is running a pilot project but its can bases aren’t yet being used by manufacturers.

There is, however, huge scope for it to expand. Global consumption of tuna is currently around 25 billion cans a year, says Yemini, and Caniel currently produces less than 100 million tuna cans per annum.

“If the customer wants, we can sell only the bottom of the can, which means we can put more than a million of them into a shipping container, so the transportation costs are low,” Yemini explains.

The company, founded in Israel back in 1926, manufactures a wide range of cans and other packaging products for baby food, coffee, pickled cucumbers, olives, drinks, cosmetics, paints, oils, glues and more.

But tuna in oil poses a very particular problem for the end user, one which took four years of research and development to address.

That sounds like a lot of work to redesign the base of a tuna can, but it’s a complex business.

The company worked closely with Israel-based Practical Innovation, which was responsible for spearheading the conception, research, development program, and management of the development process.

“We had to find the right material with the specification we needed, which all takes a long time, and then get the design right, with help from Thyssenkrupp, the German steel-making company,” says Yemini.

“The filler put the tuna in the can and heat it for an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half. The metal changes during that process, so if the design is not perfect you’ll try to click the button and it won’t work.”

The company is building new factory in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, to allow for increased production.

“We don’t want to lead the worldwide tuna market,” says Yemini. “Only this niche product that we’ve developed. For us 500 million cans a year would be huge.”

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