Peru is home to the world's biggest fishery with catches of over 95 million tonnes of anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), since 2000, yet one in six small children in Peru suffer from chronic malnutrition. This is not because anchoveta is unsuitable for human consumption—on the contrary, they are nutritious, tasty and available year-round, close to the coast. Almost all anchoveta are, however, reduced to provide fishmeal and oil for export. Only a few per cent of the landings are used for direct human consumption, and while this use has increased significantly over the last decade, the growth has stopped because of perverse incentives that encourage landing for reduction purposes, combined with production methods that are expensive and unsuitable for large-scale operations. We discuss the roadblocks and prospects for significantly increasing the contribution of anchoveta to global food security and provide an outlook for how big this contribution potentially could be. It is time to change how anchoveta is used.