Nestled at the end of a steep cliff on the Cantabrian coast is Elantxobe. On the mountain slope, the houses crowd together and cascade down to the port. It is a small harbor, well protected from the wind. Damp nets, wooden crates, and the intense smell of brine are scattered on the dock. In the middle of this Biscayan landscape, a 17-year-old boy silently observes everything. His name is José Garavilla, the son of a Riojan emigrant, and in 1887, he decided to try his luck in a nascent sector that would soon transform the port's rhythm: the canning industry. He opened a small factory and, with the help of his family, gradually made a name for himself in the sector. But the qualitative leap came in 1917, with the opening of La Equitativa, the first large Garavilla Canning Factory. Without realizing it, she has just planted the seed of Isabel, one of the most famous canned tuna brands in Spain, as well as in Italy and several Latin American countries.

When we eat a can of tuna, we're ingesting a portion of the yellowfin variety of this oily fish, usually large. The other two ingredients we're ingesting are oil, which can be either olive oil (in rare cases, extra virgin) or sunflower oil, and salt. In fact, the proportions of salt can be high because it's the ingredient used to preserve the tuna in the can. For this reason, Dr. Pere Gascón states that "a can of tuna doesn't replace one of the three recommended weekly servings of fish." The doctor also warns about the origin of the canned fish. "Often they're not locally caught fish, but quite the opposite," he says.

Paris and seven other French cities have banned children eat tuna in school cafeteriasThe reason is scientific and well-known: this fish, which is caught when it weighs more than thirty kilos, can contain heavy metals, such as mercury, which can be passed into the human body through ingestion. The Catalan Food Safety Agency has been warning for years, of tuna and large fish in general, and that is why it has always recommended that pregnant women and children do not eat them so that mercury, once in the human body, is not eliminated and can affect neurocognitive development.

Eight French cities – Paris, Lyon, Lille, Begla, Grenoble, Montpellier, Moans-Sartós and Rennes – have decided to ban tuna and foods made with this fish from school and college cafeteria menus. The reason for the ban is the alleged health risk that can arise from eating this fish, which in some cases can contain a quantity of mercury that is considered dangerous.

From being a minority species at risk of disappearing to becoming a real problem that disrupts the daily life of fishing. This is the radical paradigm shift that Catalan fishermen are denouncing regarding the proliferation of bluefin tuna on the high seas in recent yearsFrom the Ebro Delta to Cape Creus, the boats that go out fishing every morning must deal with hundreds of large tuna that surround the boats, scare away the fish, and damage the nets. Purse seine fishermen suffer the most. After attracting the attention of the school of anchovies or sardines with their spotlight, they come face to face with these large predators of blue fish that enter the net, feed at will, and scare away all the catches. "Like a wolf scaring the sheep" is the most repeated phrase within the sector.

Today's proposal takes us five kilometers out to sea. It starts on dry land, of course. At the Almendra de Mar. From there, the catamaran departs to take us up close to the bluefin tuna. Wow, so close that you'll swim alongside these two-meter-long fish. And afterward, you can do a tasting. But let's get down to business. We're talking about an activity that's been going on for years and that leaves no one who participates in it indifferent. It's the Tuna Tour of Balfegó, the fish farmers who have brought bluefin tuna to the world's finest restaurants. In fact, you'll have seen on many restaurant menus that the tuna they serve is supplied by Balfegó.

The Balfegó Group, specialized in the fishing and aquaculture of bluefin tuna from L'Ametlla de Mar, expects to close this fiscal year—the accounting year ends in April because it coincides with the fishing season, not the calendar year—with €107.6 million in revenue, 23% more than last year, when sales explained the growth for three reasons. First, the fact that the company sells more products with higher added value; second, the improvement in fishing quotas, which this year are expected to increase by another 20%.