1989 – Once one of the “Big Three” Tuna processors in the UNITED STATES since 1899, iconic brand BUMBLE BEE (after a whirlwind of stock market gymnastics, etc.) is purchased by a THAILAND conglomerate UNICORD, essentially ending U.S. domestic operation after 90 years (1899, starting with salmon), but they still maintain their “Bumble Bee Headquarters” offices in SAN DIEGO, California.
After further changes, Bumble Bee went bankrupt in 1997, and again went through a series of business and ownership changes.
In August of 2015, Bumble Bee Foods was sued, accused of illegally COLLUDING (i.e. “price fixing”) with the other two of the “Big Three” U.S.-based Tuna Producers; CHICKEN OF THE SEA and STARKIST to FIX prices to cheat consumers.
Bumble Bee’s former CEO, Mr. Christopher Lischewski, was indicted in May 2018 for price fixing. After pleading not guilty he was found guilty of indeed conspiring to fix prices of cans of tuna sold in the U.S. from November 2010 to December 2013. A truly SHAMEFUL, awful ending for a once-proud tuna fleet and highly successful labor force of fisherman and cannery workers IN the U.S..
In 2015 Bumble Bee Foods was even in talks to MERGE with Chicken of the Sea, but the merger was called off on December 2015 for Antitrust concerns.
*Note: Not too long afterward (but *outside* the U.S.), the BUMBLE BEE *NAME* is later acquired by the TAIWANESE company FCF Ltd. (now the largest tuna trader in the world), yet still maintains those “company headquarters office” in SAN DIEGO, California (ed.-?!).