Testa Conserve — Bluefin Tuna & Anchovies from Sicily

Aerial view of the Testa family vessel Atlante closing a purse-seine net beside a floating tuna pen in the deep blue Mediterranean

Producer · Ognina, Sicily

A family of fishermen from Ognina, the ancient port of Ulysses, who have sailed the Sicilian seas for over 200 years — and now preserve what they catch, from their own boats to the jar.

House: Testa Conserve
Since: 1800
Territory: Ognina, Catania
Craft: Bluefin tuna & oily fish preserves

Two centuries of Sicily in every jar.

Parish archives and family memory place the first Testa boat on the water around 1800. Since then, seven generations have set out from the same small harbour beneath Etna: Ognina, the port that legend assigns to Ulysses, buried by an eruption in the fourteenth century and rebuilt as the marina where the Testa boats are still moored today.

Giovanni Verga set his fishermen, the Malavoglia, a few miles up the coast at Aci Trezza. The Testas were already fishing when he wrote. Four names run through the bloodline — Salvatore, Giuseppe, Concetto and Antonino — and one Agata, who took the helm of the family when she was widowed.

Black-and-white photograph of the small harbour of Ognina, Catania, in 1959, with wooden fishing boats pulled up on the shore — Ognina, 1959.

Captain Pippo Testa at work on deck, in a navy jacket and cap, with the sea behind him

The trade has changed from sail and oar to steel hulls and satellite tracking, but the ethic has not.

"You do not fight with the sea. You can only seek to know her and befriend her."

Captain Pippo Testa

The house

Top-down aerial view of the 42-metre steel vessel Atlante, built by the Testa family in 2002, underway on open sea

1800

The family's fishing activity begins at Ognina, on the eastern coast of Sicily.

1950

The first motor boat, Buttafuoco, followed by Ulisse, Santopadre and Gabbiano.

1970s

With the 30-metre wooden vessel Nino Testa, the family adds bluefin tuna to its traditional oily-fish catch.

2002

Atlante, a 42-metre steel vessel designed and built by the family, is launched. In 2005 Futura Prima (38 m) joins her: one hunts bluefin, the other anchovies and mackerel.

2009

Testa is assigned an ICCAT quota for bluefin tuna, the regulated system that brought the species back from the brink of extinction.

2017

Testa Conserve is born: the family begins preserving its own catch at its plant in Portopalo di Capo Passero, in plastic-free packaging inspired by Sicilian Liberty style.

The Testa fleet holding a purse-seine net open in a wide circle on the open sea, seen from above

Four weeks, from late May to late June, with an inspector on board from the moment the boat leaves port.

Purse-seine nets release fish under 30 kg.

Why we selected Testa

Heritage

Few producers in our selection can claim two hundred years of unbroken family practice. Testa is not a brand that bought its story; it is a fishing family that decided, in 2017, to finish the job themselves.

Origin

Bluefin from the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Strait of Sicily. Anchovies from the Ionian waters off Portopalo. Every jar names its sea, and the family's own boats are the only link between that sea and the plant.

Craft

Anchovies are headed and gutted one by one between thumb and finger — a perfect crescent-shaped cut is the mark of a skilled worker — salted within two hours of landing, then packed fillet by fillet in organic cold-pressed sunflower oil. Tuna is steamed at around 90°C for nearly two hours, dried, then matured in oil for a month before it leaves Portopalo.

Sustainability

Testa fishes bluefin only within its ICCAT quota, with an authorised inspector on board. The family also lends its vessels and expertise to marine research programmes, and runs a circular, short supply chain entirely under its own control.

Gloved hands portioning a bluefin tuna loin with a long knife on a blue cutting board

Anchovy fillets being laid one by one into a glass jar by hand

Guarantee of origin

From the sea to the jar — with an identity card.

Bluefin tuna is barely 1% of the tuna caught worldwide, and the most protected. Every jar of Testa tuna carries a BCD number — Bluefin Tuna Catch Document — that traces the fish from the day it was caught to your table.

of the tuna caught worldwide is bluefin

4 minutes

from the holding pen to the butchery and down to −70°C

ICCAT-regulated quota
BCD full traceability
Forbes 100 Italian Excellences 2024
Best in Sicily 2021
Plastic-free packaging

A gloved hand checking the printed label on a tin of Testa bluefin tuna in the plant

An open tin of Testa Ionian anchovy fillets beside a ripe tomato and walnuts on a linen cloth

Through ZAGARA Selection

Testa Conserve is already on the tables of the world's finest restaurants, from New York to Dubai. Through ZAGARA Selection, it reaches Australia the way it leaves Sicily — same catch, same hands, same jar. Two hundred years of the Ionian Sea, delivered to your door.