While total seafood has performed relatively well in U.K. foodservice since 2015, fish and chips as a meal has grown faster than both total foodservice and total seafood servings over both the long- and short-term, according to Seafish’s latest market insight on the iconic dish.
Seafish’s data finds that fish and chip meal servings grew during the first part of austerity and peaked in 2010. A period of general decline followed until 2015 when servings began to grow strongly and have remained in growth, continuing into 2017. It now accounts for 18 percent of all seafood served through foodservice.
Across all foodservice channels, for the two years to September 2017, fish and chip servings totaled 381 million, an increase of 9 percent compared with the two years through to September 2016 and up more than 7 percent on 2009.
Traditional fish and chip shops remain the largest outlet for servings of fish and chips as a meal, taking 54 percent of servings. Along with the workplace channel, it has grown its share of fish and chip servings against two years ago. Over the longer term, fish and chip shops, the workplace and the pub channel have performed well for fish and chips – growing servings by 16 percent, 15 percent and 9.1 percent respectively since 2009.
Meanwhile, Seafish believes that the best opportunity to grow fish and chip consumption is in the quick service restaurant (QSR) channel, i.e. fast food outlets and casual dining, which currently only make up 8 percent of servings.
This is the largest foodservice channel, which grew nearly four times faster than the traditional fish and chip shops through austerity, it said.
The seafood authority also highlighted that uncertainty following the Brexit vote to leave the EU in June 2016, coupled with a slowing U.K. economy and wages failing to keep up with rising inflation, hit consumer confidence in 2017. However, the impact is yet to be seen on seafood servings, which remain in growth, “indeed outperforming general foodservice.”
If the United Kingdom does return to recession, fish and chip meal servings may continue to grow for a couple of years, following a similar pattern to that observed from 2007 to 2010, said Seafish.
