The so-called “gourmet hamburger” trend with chefs using high-quality meat blends and creative condiments may be the current toast of the U.K. restaurant trade, but paper-wrapped fish and chips remains the country’s favorite take-out food — a position it has held for well over a century.
It is estimated that 80 percent of the U.K. population visit fish and chip shops — affectionately known as “chippies” — at least once a year, while 22 percent of people visit every week. Brits annually spend around GBP 1.2 billion (USD 2 billion, EUR 1.5 billion) on fish and chips, with cod and haddock the most popular items on the menu, followed by other species such as plaice, whiting and lemon sole.
According to the U.K. Seafish Authority, which organizes the annual National Fish & Chip Awards, today there are approximately 10,500 take-out fish and chip shops in the country, collectively serving around 380 million meals annually.
While the number of outlets has fallen significantly since the peak in the late 1920s when there were about 35,000 chippies, there’s no shortage of enthusiastic new entrants to the trade, many of whom are bringing a more contemporary, foodie feel to the industry.
“I believe there’s been a bit of a renaissance. Not every business is the same but there’s clearly more effort and passion coming in,” said John Molnar, founder of The Cod’s Scallops, which won the Best Newcomer Award in this year’s competition.
“When setting up, I felt that there was more to fish and chips than cod, haddock and plaice, and so I visited every top fish and chip shop in the country to see what they did and how they did it,” he said.
Last week, The Cod’s Scallops had 17 different varieties of fish on its menu at any one time. The menu included hake — its third best seller and a U.K. stock that has grown significantly, but a lot of which historically goes straight to export.
“Sixty percent of our trade is battered cod and haddock, but we have 40 percent that includes hake, grey mullet, gurnard, whole baked lemon sole and scallops, of course. We ask anyone ordering haddock in our shop if they have had hake before; if they try it and don’t like it, I’ll give them their money back. We have every confidence in our fish; we know we are buying fantastic local hake — 4kg fillets, chunky white flakes — everything you can ever want from a battered fish.”
Molnar, who is a chef by trade, told SeafoodSource that turnover increased 25 percent following this year’s award. Now, following initial judging, The Cod's Scallops has been shortlisted in the Independent Takeaway Fish and Chip Shop of the Year Award category — the grand prize — for the 2015 edition of the awards. All award winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 20 January 2015.
Industry evolution
While the iconic fish and chip meal has not changed much from its earliest incarnations, the industry has become much more sophisticated and aware of issues within the broader seafood supply chain. As such, sustainability has become increasingly essential to the trade.
The Cod’s Scallops, for example, uses a lot of local fresh fish but the line-caught cod, haddock and plaice it buys in are frozen as they are sourced from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) approved fisheries much further afield.
“Also, as a chef, I assumed fresh was best, but we ran several tests of fresh haddock and cod against frozen, and frozen worked every time on consistency and price. And as we are an inland business, the frozen products seemed fresher,” said Molnar.
In fact, around 95 percent of the cod sold by U.K. fish and chip shops is caught in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea and Iceland and imported into the market as frozen at sea (FAS) products. In England, most of the haddock eaten again comes from the Barents Sea and Iceland, while in Scotland haddock is much more likely to come from the North Sea.
Many switched-on fish and chip shop owners are now telling their customers about where the fish they sell has been sourced, in many cases even giving the name of the boat that caught their fish. To further help these businesses and their customers get a better understanding of provenance and responsible sourcing, Seafish recently began distributing a new toolkit that includes a short educational film, “The Truth About Cod,” developed with help from the Frozen At Sea Fillets Association (FASFA), that shows where the species being served comes from, how they are managed and why they can be eaten “with a clear conscience.”
With provenance increasingly driving consumer choice across the country’s entire food and drink sector, Andy Gray, trade marketing manager at Seafish, reckons there’s never been a better time to promote the topics of responsible sourcing and sustainability in fish and chip shops.
“Consumers are increasingly wanting to know more about where their food comes from, therefore employees need to be better informed about the subject of responsible sourcing, so that they can talk confidently to customers and assure them that there is plenty of fish available for them to continue eating the nation's favorite takeaway,” he said.
So while fish and chips may never become the trendiest food in the marketplace, the industry is ensuring that it continues to move with the times, ticking the boxes for today’s consumers.
