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His grandfather worked in Florio’s cannery, which is now a tonnara museum. He tells the

history of tonno sotto olio (tuna in olive oil), pausing from time to time, to explain the

different types of tuna products on the plate.

Florio, during an industrial convention in Milan, meets a French producer who
makes tomatoes in olive oil. Florio was a crafty person. He gets himself invited to
the factory to go and see how the other guy makes tomato in olive oil. When he
returns to Italy, he begins a production line and starts making tuna in olive oil,
copying the tomato model. This is how it evolved. (M Tammaro 2013 pers. comm.
7 July)

In Sardinia the transition from barrels to tins took place in the mid-1800s. Giuliano

details how in 1861 his family moved the tuna processing factory from Portoscuso, on the

mainland of Sardinia, to its current location at La Punta in San Pietro., At its peak in the

1960s and 70s the cannery produced some 60,000 tins per day for a local Italian and an

international market.

Fig. 1.6 Florio’s cannery (Favignana 2016).

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