Fish...is our Business

The main products of B.C. Packers were canned salmon and packaged frozen fish. The Company’s signature brands were “Clover Leaf” canned salmon and “Rupert Brand” frozen fish products. BC Packers worked hard to market these brands nationwide and ensure that they became a household names in Canada.

Through decades of aggressive advertising – on city billboards, on radio and television, in newspapers and magazines, at product displays in Woodward’s and the PNE – B.C. Packers ensured that “Clover Leaf” canned salmon was the number one choice of Canadians.

By the 1950s, the Company expanded its product range to include a wide variety of convenient, packaged frozen fish products. This new frozen product line was marketed under the name “Rupert Brand”. It would emerge as the Company’s most lucrative brand. From frozen salmon, halibut and cod steaks to “Heat and Eat” fish sticks and fish and chips, B.C. Packers expanded its “Rupert Brand” line during the 1950s and 1960s to meet the rising demand of shoppers in Canada’s growing network of grocery store chains.

While marketing was always an important part of the salmon canning industry, the visual appeal of the products was always a careful consideration of companies like B.C. Packers. Label designs were often dynamic, with bold lettering and bright, eye-catching colours. Although packaging style changed over time, it was always distinctive.

Over the decades, Imperial Cannery produced a great majority of the Company’s “Clover Leaf” and “Rupert Brand” seafood products. As new markets were opened and new products developed, Imperial Cannery grew to become one of the largest fish processing plants in the world. Its fish products were shipped far and wide. From England and Belgium to Italy and South Africa to Australia and the Philippines, B.C. Packers products were sold around the world.