In 1997, Heinz acquired the brand and the majority of the John West Food company operations, excluding those in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa which continued to be part of Unilever.

[5] In March 2006, Heinz sold its European Seafoods business to French-based MW Brands, itself owned by Lehman Brothers banking group, for EUR 425 million.

[15] In 2011, the company committed to source all of its tuna through a combination of pole and line and purse seine FAD-free (fish aggregation devices) sustainable catch methods by the end of 2016.

[23][24] John West is the only UK and Ireland canned seafood manufacturer to wholly own a fleet of vessels which ensures it has visibility of its entire fishing supply chain.

[26] However, in October 2015, John West was accused by conservation group Greenpeace of not standing by their word, and of having made a "deeply misleading" and "plainly false" promise to this effect.

It was found that although the website showed tuna only being caught in the Seychelles, Ghana and Portugal, in fact a large number of cans were sourced from canneries owned by John West's parent company Thai Union in the Samut Sakhon region of Thailand.

The controversy became widely reported in the news, leading to John West changing its website to state that customers wishing to trace a can from Thailand should email the company instead, for further details.