StarKist Co. has announced plans to move its corporate headquarters from Pittsburgh to Virginia next year.
StarKist, known for cartoon mascot Charlie the Tuna, said in a statement that the headquarters on Pittsburgh's North Shore will close at the end of March 2022 “but the company will maintain a presence in the region." The new headquarters will be in Virginia in the Washington D.C. area, StarKist said.
StarKist, originally the French Sardine Co., was founded in California in 1917 and became StarKist Foods in 1953. The seafood firm's connection with landlocked Pittsburgh came when it was sold to H.J. Heinz Co. in 1963. StarKist was acquired in 2002 by Del Monte Foods and was purchased by Dongwon Industries of South Korea in 2008.
StarKist has operations in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The world's largest supplier of canned and packaged tuna with more than 40 percent of the market, StarKist in recent years has added other protein sources such as salmon and chicken.
In 2019, a federal judge ordered the company to pay a fine of $100 million following a Justice Department antitrust division investigation into packaged tuna price-fixing.
