Trader Joes Anchovy Fillets in Olive Oil (Pack of 3)

I have never bought anything bad from Trader Joe's until now. I had 1 can of Trader Joe's and 3 cans of another brand in my pantry. I opened the TJ's can tonight and it exploded all over my counter and stove top. My husband was sitting at the counter at the time. The smell that exploded from that tiny little can is one that almost made me puke. It truly smelled like a decomposing corpse. I had a hell of a time getting that smell out of my kitchen. I had only bought the anchovies about a month before using, so I was shocked that they were rotten. I opened one of the other tins of a different brand and it was fine. I spent about 45 minutes trying to get the odor out of my kitchen. DO NOT BUY TRADER JOE'S ANCHOVIES!!!

First of all, the other reviews are correct: these smell truly disgusting, like BO mixed with rotten fish. However, the anchovies still looked good and my family is brave, so after going through two cans and finding them all the same we decided to go through with it. We lived. Did it taste better than it smelled? No! Should we have eaten it? No! Do I recommend these? Absolutely not.Will they give you food poisoning? Also no. Anchovies naturally decay in the can because they're not totally preserved, but the bacteria isn't harmful. These are edible even if they taste gross and kind of explode when opened.That said, the first can exploded such that it got on my hair and the smell was truly out of this world.Don't order these.

I ADORE TJ--it's my go-to market for nearly everything. But these anchovies, opened just now for a caesar salad, are the worst-smelling food I have ever encountered, and I'm 72 and widely travelled. Truly, no exaggeration. They smelled like human feces. I thought the can must have gone bad, so I opened the second can I had. Same. They expire Feb 28, 2021, so they are not too old. I will NEVER EVER BUY ANCHOVIES FROM TJ AGAIN. I can't get the smell off my hands. Off to Whole Foods for anchovies...

Every review here talks about how rotten and or smelly this was with a touch of exploding oil. My experience was terrific. The can i opened put some oil around but nothing that was not manageable. The odor for me ( a seattle native and fish lover) wasnt weird. The saltiness of the fish was insane. The fillets tasted like someone had coated them in salt like one coats desserts in sugar. I would've preferred drinking a couple of ocean water to eating that. Regardless i finished it because i was hungry and poor. The larger purple can of sardines is much better.

I bought three cans and I ended up opening all three because the first one smelled terrible and thought it was just that can. They ALL smelled the same. I thought maybe it was me and tasted one filet from the third can and it tasted terrible! I checked the expiration date and was stamped 2020. My husband ate one filet drenched in hot sauce thinking TJ wouldn't sell a bad product. I took the rest of the cans and tossed them. They did not smell or taste like this the last time I had them. I wrote TJ and I hope TJ does a quality check because something is not right.

I’m disappointed that TJ still has these toxic anchovies on the market. It’s December 2018 and I bought them at the store and you can tell they aren’t sealed properly and the smell is off. It smells rotten and clearly there is a quality control issue.

I've been buying TJ anchovies for years. They were out for a while last year. Just bought 4 cans a month ago when they had them in stock. 2 out of the 4 were bad. I don't mean fishy smelling bad. I mean the smell was so bad I couldn't get them to the garbage and outside fast enough . And the smell lingered in my kitchen and hands, like the smell of a feed lot, fermented diarrhea and a strong chemical. I will never eat another anchovy again.

Just ruined an entire recipe with these foul smelling (best described as metallic, chemical or tinny) anchovies. To sure I’ll ever shop at Trader Joe’s again, except to take the remaining tins back. Too bad the reviews don’t allow negative stars.