9-Lives cat food sold in the US comes in small, 5.5 oz. aluminum cans, with a pull tab on the lid for easy opening - with the exception of the three flaked tuna varieties: plain, with egg and with cheese bits. These come in a steel can, the type you need an opener for.
Why is that? I should note that there are other varieties with tuna in them, such as “Chicken and Tuna Dinner”, which have a pull tab can, so it’s not strictly a tuna-content thing. The steel can seems to be reserved for the types where tuna is the main course.
Has it been this way for long? Maybe they’re just in the process of changing over.
Alternately, maybe they come from different canneries. The tuna ones might come from a cannery near the coast, while the chicken flavors might come from inland. It’s not implausible that different facilities would have different canning equipment.
It’s been this way for at least ten years, probably much longer. I can’t recall when 9-Lives didn’t have pull-tab cans, but the tuna ones were always the solid-top type.
Other cat food companies sell tuna in pull-tab cans (Fancy Feast is the one I know), so maybe it’s that their tuna processing plant just hasn’t changed over for some reason. I wonder if 9 lives is the only one. Are you in the US, OP?
Ah, buried in that old thread is a link to a page with the answer.
"We use two different types of cans for Friskies canned cat food. Each type comes from a different can supplier and source. The cans for the tuna flavor are made of steel, and this flavor is manufactured and canned in Thailand. They do not have a pull tab. The cans for all other flavors are made of aluminum; these other flavors are manufactured and canned locally. The aluminum cans have a pull-tab. Both are recyclable.
“The tuna flavor is made in Thailai-id because of the availability of high-quality tuna in that part of the world. Packing the tuna in Thailand, immediately after it is caught, makes a higher-quality product than freezing the tuna and shipping it to the United States for packing. Cats have a keen sense of taste and smell, and they do notice the difference…”
(Quote from a Friskies consumer affairs flack. I asked about 9-Lives, but apparently Friskies has a similar backstory.)