Businesses that serve Britain’s favorite takeaway food – fish and chips – are experiencing a crisis due to soaring prices, leaving these mostly independent, modest-sized ventures fearing for their future.
The U.K.’s National Federation of Fish Friers (NFFF) President Andrew Crook, who is also the owner of Skippers of Euxton, a fish and chips restaurant in Chorley, Lancashire, told SeafoodSource that he doesn’t worry about demand for the fish-and-chip industry and believes the product “will always be strong.” However, he believes change is likely, including further consolidation.
Crook said one-third of the country’s fish and chip shops could go out of business in the next five years, with many finding it too difficult to operate due to escalating fish, energy, and overall cost-of-living prices.
“As an industry, we’ve been through so much over the past 160 years – faced plenty of challenges – but I think this is probably the biggest threat the industry has seen,” he said. “Just as we were coming out of Covid, and while those takeaways that opened did quite well, it was a very stressful time. Now, we have all these huge cost pressures.”
Crook said greater government support for independent businesses would be a huge help amid all the uncertainty, but that his organization’s calls for aid have largely gone unheeded.
“There’s a big theory in the industry that independents don’t matter and that government is all about big businesses … We’ve felt a little bit abandoned,” Crook said. “But … every member of the public has their own favorite independent fish-and-chip shop, and we’ve got to preserve that. Fish and chips has cultural importance, and there are a lot of independent businesses out there that need support.”
Through its work supporting the fish-and-chip sector – particularly surrounding challenges relating to its heavy dependence on Russian whitefish and the 35 percent tariffs placed by the U.K. government on direct imports – the NFFF has been evaluating the potential of alternative species.
“I think it came as a surprise to the government how reliant we were on Russian-caught fish. They didn’t understand the seafood market and the fact that a lot [of Russian fish] comes in via China and other countries,” Crook said. “It’s only with the invasion of Ukraine that it has all come to a head, and that’s what’s now changing the government’s outlook on food security and what needs to be done.”
Following a collaborative project with U.S.-based Pacific Northwest Seafood, the NFFF recently looked at Pacific hake as an option, and a handful of U.K. fish-and-chip shops trialed the fish with their customers.
Crook has since visited the U.S. state of Oregon to gauge U.S. hake supplies, but an issue with this species is that it is very delicate and, therefore, difficult to skin.
“This limits the markets that it would be suitable for,” Crook said. “Some people would be able to sell it, but others wouldn’t.”
Pacific hake is also smaller in size than the sector is used to, averaging about 4 ounces per fillet, while the industry normally deals with 6- to 7-ounce whitefish.
Crook also examined rockfish, or Pacific ocean perch, while he was in the U.S. Easy to skin and meeting the 6- to 7-ounce size requirement, he said that he’d like to get some over to the U.K. market to trial.
“It’s very difficult to move people away from traditional species, but in the past, fish-and-chip shops would only use Maris Piper [potatoes]; Now, they are open to all types because they realize that certain varieties do a better job at different times of the year,” he said. “The same could happen with fish … It’s about exploring all these opportunities and seeing if there’s anything else out there that can do [the] job for us.”
A recent easing of haddock prices has lowered the urgency of introducing new species – at least in the short term, Crook said.
“We are seeing a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel because haddock prices have dropped off a cliff in recent weeks, which is giving us a little bit of room,” Crook said.
Haddock prices are significantly lower than cod. Crook said while he’s recently bought skinless, boneless cod at GBP 11.44 (USD 14.67, EUR 13.40) per kilogram, he also paid GBP 6.78 (USD 8.69, EUR 7.94) per kilogram for skinless, bone-in haddock.
“What’s likely to happen is that more people will go on to haddock, and prices will go up. [Then] cod prices will come down, and we’ll find a new level,” he said. “That’s all dependent on demand, and we don’t know where that will be in the future.”
Crook views all of this innovation and tinkering as necessary in an industry that’s currently at a crossroads.
“It’s interesting times, but we have to explore these other species,” he said. “It’s about planning for the future and horizon scanning; we have to have a plan B in reserve because you never know what’s just around the corner.”
Photo courtesy of George Street Fish Restaurant
