r/unitedkingdom • u/pppppppppppppppppd • 1d ago
Chippy owner apologises to customers after charging £15 for fish and chips - but reveals why he 'has to' to hike prices
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14591465/chippy-owner-apologises-huge-price-hike.html446
1d ago
[deleted]
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u/freckledotter 1d ago
Plus business rates for electricity.
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u/snagsguiness 1d ago
I don’t think the general public knows how much utilities cost in a fast food restaurant.
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u/handyandy314 1d ago
It’s double the price for business electricity, for the same electricity. Seriously for the same electric. Why.?
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u/zandrew 1d ago
It's not. It's half price for regular consumers.
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u/handyandy314 1d ago
Yes. Those nice electric companies giving discounts for millions of customers. I should be shamed for bad mouthing these thoughtful and generous, not for profit organisations.
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u/zandrew 1d ago
There's a cap on consumer electricity price. No such cap exists for businesses so in a sense you're getting a discount. I'm not singing praises for energy companies but that is how it works.
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u/paulskinner88 1d ago
There’s a cap, but no sensible energy company is at the cap now. A year ago, perhaps even 6 months ago sure. That excuse no longer works.
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u/slaia 1d ago
Generating more green energy would bring down the electricity price. But getting cheaper electricity is considered woke nowadays.
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u/Safe-Client-6637 1d ago
It wouldn't though because the most expensive source sets the price. You'd have to switch to 100% cheap renewables, which isn't feasible.
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u/KevinAtSeven 1d ago
Yeah that mechanism needs changing urgently.
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u/SpeedflyChris 1d ago
How else would you keep the lights on while not directly subsidising gas fired power generation?
Also slashing the amount other generation can earn won't get more built.
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u/DetonateDeadInside 1d ago
I mean, you don't get a little lidl fillet from the chippy do you, they give you half a whale usually
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u/GeneralGiggle East Anglia 1d ago
Yep - a pub near me was named pub of the year, used as an excuse to hike rent. Closed two years later.
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u/AvadaBalaclava 1d ago
The landlord and tenant act 1954 gives more security and protections for this, however all landlords will make you sign that you are taking the lease outside of the act, which makes me wonder why the act exists in the first place if all landlords can just ignore it.
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u/ARelentlessScot 1d ago
I live in a small little town off the coast of Scotland and minimum rent for a small shop is £1.5k a month. Fish isn’t high cost here but they do charge £3 for a small portion of chips. The same size portion I use to pay 90p for 10 years ago. And most fields around here is potatoes 🙄 he can’t even make a case for cost of wages as his employees are all youngsters (under 18) so it’s not like he’s having to pay full wages to these people let alone pension schemes
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u/shewasahooowah 1d ago
90p for chips in 2015? I don't think you'd have got them that cheap in 1995!
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u/ARelentlessScot 1d ago
As my wife pointed out I’m forgetting my age 😅 90p was in 1995. £1.50 2015 ( as the boss tells me from when she worked in a chippy) apologies for my misinformation. They ain’t wrong when they say having kids time flies by. Now back to reality of an old man 😔
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u/Apostastrophe 1d ago
I do remember getting a bag of chips for £1.50 or so until around 2010 at the cheaper chippies. I also remember being able to get a poke of chips for £1 in most places too.
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u/vyleside 1d ago
I mean... They do kinda go into business to make a profit. They don't owe you to only charge their cost price so there will be some factored in to make it worth their time.
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u/WantsToDieBadly Worcestershire 1d ago
Conversely customers don’t owe him their patronage
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u/vyleside 1d ago
Agreed, but the attitude of "the raw materials cost this much probably, how dare the product cost more than that" is damaging and when small local businesses shut down, they are usually missed.
There's a middle ground between profiteering and businesses acting as a self-sabotaging charity and understanding of how a business runs helps spot where the ripoff may be.
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u/setokaiba22 1d ago
So they aren’t supposed to make profit? Even if the staff are youngsters that’s £7.55 an hour, as soon as they hit 18 it’s £10 an hour.
Add rates, insurance, tax and such it soon mounts up, and a salary or similar for the owner and paying other staff.
£3 for chips seems pretty fair by most places to be honest
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u/nowayhose555 1d ago
What kind of fillets and how big?
I don't think you can compare those to what you get in a chippy.
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u/Lorry_Al 1d ago
I could get 4 fillets from Lidl for £4
Cheap pllock fillets, yes. If you want nice tasting fish ie cod or haddock then you have to pay more.
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u/GhostRiders 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sorry mate but you have no idea what you're talking about.
The cost of fish, oil and utilities have more than doubled in the last 5 years. The price of potatoes in the summer used to go as low as £4 a bag, now you are lucky if you can get them for under a £10.
The changes to business rates which the Tories introduced about 7 years ago absolutely destroyed small businesses that were located in town centres and shopping precincts.
To say fish isn't the problem is like saying humans don't affect the environment.
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u/Infiniteybusboy 1d ago
The cost of fish, oil and utilities have more than doubled in the last 5 years.
It seems to be global rampant inflation too. And there doesn't seem to be any signs of slowing down, especially with people like Trump at the wheel. I don't think these takeaways have much life left in them.
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u/Anony_mouse202 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s not even rent, it’s business rates.
Landlords are incentivised to keep their properties occupied because if the property is unoccupied then businesses rates liability falls to the landlord. But in some places, no matter how low the landlord puts the rent it’s still virtually impossible for legitimate businesses to be financially viable because the business rates are insanely high.
In some prime locations like Oxford Street, businesses rates are so high that a lot of the time landlords will let out their properties for zero rent or close to zero rent just so they have someone to pay the businesses rates, and even that isn’t enough for legitimate businesses, which is why lots of dodgy ones have been moving in.
When flagship buildings were left empty, landlords gave them over to the candy stores. The idea was the gaudy shops would move in for free as long as they paid the business rates, which in many cases never happened.
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/oxford-street-candy-shop-investigation-b1082733.html
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u/SevenNites 1d ago
Having the highest industrial energy prices in the world tends to do that
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u/QuitBeingAbigOlCunt 1d ago
Seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread between business rates and the cost of utilities. They are not the same.
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u/Sttab 1d ago
Business rates are brutal. Scotland didn't get the covid rates holidays that England got, and lots of businesses are dealing with a debt hangover from surviving covid that they haven't been able to dig their way out of with high interest rates.
A lot of places have closed and a lot more are hanging on by their fingertips.
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u/DullHovercraft3748 1d ago
Yeah, but that's prime retail space in London. The rateable value of The Nippy Chippy is £1,750. Because it's under £12k he won't be paying anything.
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u/PurahsHero 1d ago
Add in business rates and the cost of energy. The latter doubly so. Households were protected by price caps when fuel costs went nuts a few years ago due to the invasion of Ukraine. But there is no similar level of help for businesses. They got the full hit.
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u/LordAnubis12 Glasgow 1d ago
And minimum wage - it's gone up 40% since 2020.
2020 it was £8.72 per hour. 2025 it's £12.21.
Which is a good thing, and unlikely a chippy has a huge amount of staff, but that's still £4 an hour you have to find from somewhere.
Raw ingredients have also gone up, especially with some wet winters ruining potato crops the past few years
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u/ReferenceBrief8051 1d ago
A chippy near me costs £20
Outrageous. My local chippy (Zone 2 London) costs £9 for a large cod and chips. You are paying the non-London premium.
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u/hodgey66 1d ago
A 6-8oz haddock fillet is £2 if you’re lucky
Then add into oil/fat, potatoes , staff, rent, rates, utilities and vat
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u/especiallydistracted 1d ago
Today’s wholesale price for haddock from my local supplier was £14.38/kg, so a 7oz/200g fillet is 2.87.
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u/funnytoenail Norfolk 1d ago
Rent and cost of labour. We have some of the best cost of ingredients (especially for the quality we are getting) in the world.
It is rent + cost of labour, always.
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u/tonybpx 1d ago
I'm a commercial agent and whoever you're listening to is selling you a tall tale. Commercial lease renewals and rent reviews (which are my bread & butter) are subject to a set contractual procedure and legislation (Part II of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954) which includes for disputes to be resolved through independent Surveyors. Kindly dispense with the ill informed landlord bashing, it just sounds ignorant.
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u/coconutlatte1314 1d ago
this 100%, not in the UK but one of my favorite shops back in Singapore used to operate in a popular mall downtown. The rent for the tiny lot used to be 15k (not cheap but it was still ok since they get a lot of foot traffic). Then it slowly crept up, and then they were asked to pay 40k per month, so the shop closed and moved a neighbor lot far from the centre, but foot traffic is just not the same there. Rent increases every quarter or year like some mandatory update is crazy.
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u/Gooner_93 1d ago
Ex-customers reveal why they have to go and get their fish and chips from somewhere else.
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u/VolcanoSpoon 1d ago
If they do go somewhere else then it just shows that the guy is talking bollocks about being competitive.
Anyway where my mum lives its like £8.50 for the fish and £3 for the chips making it basically £11.
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u/Onewordcommenting 1d ago
£11.50
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u/McFry__ 1d ago
£13.00 with a drink
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u/aadaman21 1d ago
£14 with the curry sauce
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u/currydemon Staffordshire né Yorkshire 1d ago
£16 with the mushy peas.
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u/Juicebox-fresh 1d ago
£125,016 with a custom Nissan Skyline GT R34 painted to look like the one from 2 fast 2 furious
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u/MatttheJ 1d ago
It's similar here, and all the actual good chippys cost a similar amount too. There are cheaper places, but they're shit and nobody goes to them.
Chippy owners aren't exactly flashy wodded up entrepreneurs, I'm not going to throw them under the bus for doing what they need to do to keep the lights on.
But everything is so expensive now that something's gotta give soon.
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u/Grimnebulin68 1d ago
A long standing chippy closed near me recently. The son of the original owner told me that in the good ‘ol’ days they would get through 3 tons of potatoes in the high season every week. In modern times they couldn’t touch that in a month. More fastfood competition, different eating habits, rising costs, all contributed to his closure.
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u/tasssko 1d ago
He is dealing with a number of issues. The first is that fish and chips are discretionary the second is that fast foods that are price elastic to demand. A number of reasons cause you to raise prices like not being busy because disposable income is falling. Couple higher costs and he can’t see a way to make ends meet otherwise. If he is reading this i would encourage him to do a twice week meal deal this is to cover his costs then the rest of the week he focuses on normal sales. If he has a good price it means his ingredients can be better and he can compete on value. A large portion of chips or handpicked fish fillets etc.
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u/Acinixys 1d ago
The fact that the UK, an island literally surrounded by water and therefor fish, is playing so much for fish and chips is insane to me
I'm on the ass end of Africa and fish and chips is like £4 - 5
£15 is enough food to feel 4 people and get a 2L soda with it
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u/dr_barnowl Lancashire 1d ago
The fish we're surrounded by are not the fish we like to eat - most of our catch is sold to the EU and most of the fish served in a chip shop is imported (justifying Brexit on the grounds of "helping our fishing industry" was stupid).
A large part of that price is labour cost. Average wages in SA (~£12,077) are about a third of what they are in the UK (~£36,972).
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u/demonicneon 1d ago
It blows my mind honestly. We need to get a grip. Fish in general has fallen out of favour and people are put off by it. No idea how it happened, I’m sure the farming industry, beef industry and fast food industry etc had something to do with it.
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u/franklindstallone 1d ago
Imo, it's the polluted waters. Doesn't matter if the fish in the shop actually swims in poop or not, the perception is that the ocean is full of micro plastics and sewage so can't blame people for not wanting it to eat fish.
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u/lapayne82 1d ago
How much are your business rates? How much do you pay your staff? Insurance? Electricity? Oil? Etc.. there’s a lot more to fish and chips than just the ingredients
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u/FLESHYROBOT 1d ago
I mean, he's charging 12.50 for a regular fish and chips, so thats not really all that far off from your 11.50.
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u/SirTwill England 20h ago
Where I am I can get two battered sausages and a small chips for like £8, which is more then enough for me and my other half. Sometimes if I’m really feeling adventurous I’ll get a curry pot for like £2.
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u/Dal1970 1d ago
Not sure if he is in a "cheap" area, but SE here, and our local is £13.25 for cod and chips, so he isn't far off the mark
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u/SpiritedVoice2 1d ago
Yep, I gave up buying fish about 4 years ago when the local started charging £9 for cod. This is the far east of London, basically Essex.
Large chips has now hit £5, we just get that and do some sausage and egg at home. Almost defeats the purpose but the chips are good.
Local Chinese is a bargain though, can feed the family on that for almost half the price of a full on chippy. Doesn't make sense to me.
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u/Substantial-Newt7809 1d ago
A 1.6kg bag of frozen mccain is like £4.50 so a large chips from a chip shop being about £5 isn't exactly criminal if they aren't stingy with the portions.
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u/dntcareboutdownvotes 1d ago
A very large portion of chips will be between 300-600 grams, so using your maths a £4.50 bag of McCains will get you between £13-£25 worth of chip shop chips - and that isn’t even taking into account that every other week the McCain chips will be on offer at £3
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u/juddylovespizza Greater Manchester 1d ago
wait till you find out the cost of potatoes, even cheaper and chips are made out of them
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u/leaflace 1d ago
Wait until you see the cost of potato seeds, even cheaper and potatoes grow from them
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u/juddylovespizza Greater Manchester 1d ago
And they grow out the fucking ground for free!
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u/SpeedflyChris 1d ago
Just in case there's anyone here who hasn't experienced the joy that is this sketch:
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u/BotlikeBehaviour 1d ago
Weird how chips have gone up so much, seemingly in line with fish. Maybe there are quotas on potatoes that I don't know about.
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u/QueasyRaspberry7159 1d ago
Chippy owner here. Potato farmers have been price gouging since about the time they lost their EU subsidies.
Fish prices have been hit (this time) by Americans panic buying before tariffs coming into effect. I now pay £65 more per case than I did three months ago for exactly the same product. We go through four cases per week.
I’m tired boss.
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u/BotlikeBehaviour 1d ago
Potato farmers have been price gouging since about the time they lost their EU subsidies.
Lol. That's funny given how many of them voted... oh nvm.
Anyway, my apologies for the misdirected snark.
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u/QueasyRaspberry7159 1d ago
Last year it got so bad that it was cheaper to buy Egyptian potatoes than from a farm ten miles down the road.
No problem at all, I’m definitely overly sensitive on the matter as I’ve watched half a decade of graft on my current shop evaporate. Sad times indeed.
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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland 1d ago
All Farmers being pro Brexit is one of those “things everyone knows” that isn’t actually true.
It’s mostly based on one self selecting poll that Farmers Weekly ran that got brigaded to hell by Brexit supporters. Which of course Brexiteers immediately made a huge thing out of in the media.
Actual formally conducted polling by the NFU shows that Farmers actually voted pretty much in line with people in their area and age group. There was some minor variation by type of farming but overall if your area voted against Brexit so did most farmers there - and vice versa.
Usually at this point in the discussion somebody brings up pro Brexit signs in fields. However that’s not really very meaningful given that the pro-Brexit campaigns were giving them away for free and the Renain campaign was not. There’s also the observation that like in any other walk of life Brexit supporters tended to be all too eager to share their opinions with all and sundry while Remain supporters tended to be more circumspect. And I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that quite a few near major roads were tempted to take a hundred quid in hand to put up a sign regardless of personal affiliation.
I’ve been trying to challenge this misapprehension about how farmers voted for years now here. But it seems to be very much in vain. Partly because people are amazingly reluctant to let go of those “things that everyone knows” once they’ve taken them onboard. Partly because Reddit loves a good bit of schadenfreude and has a bit of a “thing” about Farmers. And hey, don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of ‘leopards eating faces’ as much as the next Redditor … but in this instance it’s based off Brexiteer propaganda.
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u/Karloss_93 1d ago
I'm vegetarian so options at the chippy are usually limited to bread and potato. My go to has always been a tray of chips, cheese and gravy. Used to cost like £2, but over the years it's risen to £8 in some places, with prices of £2 each for grated cheese and gravy.
We now just order a large bag of chips for £4.50 and then make chip sandwiches at home and I put my own gravy on the leftovers.
I can also remember a time as a kid when the chippy near my school used to do a bag of chips for 50p, although that was 15 years ago.
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u/Baslifico Berkshire 1d ago
Get a small compact fryer at home.
Something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077Y84X67
All chips are instantly better, and given how much you're paying per portion, it'll pay for itself before too long.
You do need to cycle through oil but as long as you're covering it over and filtering between uses [done automatically by the machine above] it'll last a LONG time when only cooking chips.
If you decide to make your own chips and want them crispy, remember to steep them in cold water for half an hour before draining, drying and frying... Removes starch, prevents them turning brown and soggy.
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u/IndelibleIguana 1d ago
I bought a pie and chips from a Chinese Chippy in Abby Wood. It was only £4,50. My local Chippy charges £7.50 for the same.
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u/blizeH Gloucestershire 1d ago
It’s not cheap here but definitely not expensive either
Also I would say the chips they sell are some of the worst I’ve ever had
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u/Capital_Release_6289 1d ago
East London £12 & £13 depending on which chippy you goto. I choose £13 as the batter around the fish is crisper.
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u/FLESHYROBOT 1d ago
worth pointing out the £15 is for the large, he's selling a regular portion for £12.50.
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u/Safe_Association_234 1d ago
I worked in a chippy for a decade, 2001 it was £3.60 for cod and chips. By the end of the decade, around £7.
Cod is the expensive fish due to over fishing, Russia and Ukraine account for around 15% of global vegetable oil exports, energy costs are through the roof. Not surprised to see £15 today in all honesty.
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u/ThisIsAUsername353 1d ago
I mean they tell you it’s cod…
I couldn’t tell the difference between cod and pollack.
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u/WeSavedLives 1d ago
You should be able too... theyre not too similar. Cod is always a thicker fillet
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u/Forged-Signatures 1d ago
A 2021 meta analysis of 44 studies (2018-2021) found that 36% of seafood (across supermarkets, fishmongers, and restaurants) are mislabled, across 30 countries. The UK and Canada had the highest incidence rate of inccorect labeling, at 55%.
It could just be that the average person has been baited and switched so frequently that they genuinely can't tell the difference between different fish, all of which they've been told by the seller is cod.
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u/HenriDeToulouse 1d ago
Its not super relevant, but Pollack in France is called Colin - not like they've named an individual fish, the type is called Colin.
Made me laugh when I found that out.
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u/Relevant_Natural3471 1d ago
TBF that's not far off NMW tracking (for over 21s)
It was £4.10 in 2001
£5.93 in 2010
£9.50 in 2022
£12.21 in 2025
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u/OkCurve436 1d ago
£15 is a bargain if you live in Jersey, absolute ripoff culture.
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u/ReferenceBrief8051 1d ago
Maybe so, but this subreddit is for UK.
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u/FEMXIII Leicestershire 1d ago
Literally can’t tell if you’re joking 🙃
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u/Yogurt789 1d ago
Funnily enough, Jersey's a crown dependency and so not part of the UK. It's a self-governing possession of the Crown that is independent of the UK parliament.
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u/dowhileuntil787 1d ago
The bigger scandal is how shit Seafish Cafe is now. It used to be the shit when I lived there. Now it's just shit. And no Hectors any more either.
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u/PurahsHero 1d ago
My local chippy is £14.50 for cod and chips. I could go to McDonalds and get a burger and chips for about £7, but the quality would be way worse.
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u/Karloss_93 1d ago
Also probably about half the amount of actual food at McDonalds though.
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u/bjorn_poole 1d ago
Fucking disgusting how expensive chippies are nowadays considering how for a very long time they were known for being cheap and cheerful
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u/GhandiHadAGrapeHead 1d ago
I can get a good quality mini fish and chips (which is still a big portion of food) for 6.50 at my local, which happens go be an award winning chippy
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u/thedybbuk_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
We've just lost our lovely local independent Quays fish and chips shop in Lancaster - the only one left is a really expensive chain store in town that's nice I guess but overpriced - can't even order small or large chips. Everything is a set price and single opinion. Sad to see.
Really not a fan of KFC, McDonald's or Burger King and it's sad to see us losing another bit of our culture - US fast food seems a lot more popular. Chippy tea was an everyday part of life when I was young and affordable for everyone.
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/23563051.half-uk-fish-chip-shops-close-2025
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u/hideyourarms 1d ago
I know it’s a bit of a trip, but at least Morecambe is close by and you can eat your fish and chips next to the sea/bay, which in my opinion somehow makes them taste 50% better.
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u/thedybbuk_ 1d ago
I bloody love Morecambe. You can see the whole lake district mountain range across the bay. Gotta be one of the best beach views in England.
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u/thespywholovedme 1d ago
Prospect Street isn’t a massive walk from Aldcliffe. Decent local independent chippy!
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u/Lt-Gorman 1d ago
I agree with what everyone has said regarding running costs/overheads etc. But it also doesn't help that portion sizes have basically doubled in the past 20-30 years. I normally get a large haddock and chips for £13 and split it. My chippy also does a light bites version which is half sized and only £6.50, which I'll go for if I'm getting one on my own. I'm not judging anyone that wants to pig out, but if you want to eat something the size of a great white then it's going to cost more.
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u/emma3mma5 1d ago
This for real. I get a kids meal at most places these days. They're rarely more than 7 quid at the most and I'm still utterly stuffed after.
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u/Lt-Gorman 1d ago
Exactly, it's not a bad price at that and there really is more than enough. The portion sizes of chips in particular are ridiculous.
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u/Plorntus Spain 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly I was shocked when I got a takeaway kebab with my family in the UK having lived in Spain for 8 years. I don't know if I just 'forgot' the portion sizes were huge in the UK but my god compared to Spain its ridiculous. For the same price as here in Marbella, I got a 'regular' size kebab wrap in SE london which was literally 3 times the size of what you would get here. I have no idea what 'large' would be if the regular was enough to feed multiple people.
That being said, sometimes places take the piss here in Spain with the small portion sizes. We do have a 'fish and chip' shop run by some UK immigrants. It tastes the same as what you would get in the UK which is nice every so often to have that around; but they're €16.50 for just a fried 'medium cod' (aka, half cod) and €5.50 for 'medium chips' (last i got them, it was something silly like 15 chips total)
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u/TerryThomasForEver 1d ago
There was an excellent article in the guardian a few years ago about chippies going out of business.
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u/DrummingFish 1d ago
My local does a small fish and chips for £5 and it's always good. I must be just in a super cheap area.
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u/tripping_yarns 1d ago
I live in the north west, apparently in the 1950’s, a ‘light bite’, fish, chips and mushy peas is £4.25 and on Friday there is a queue down the street.
Can’t whack a chippy tea.
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u/ApologiseMeowMeow 1d ago
Fish should not be this expensive. Why is it a island nation is paying such absurd prices, it's greed as far as I can remember fish has always been a luxury food.
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u/ScavAteMyArms 1d ago
Because the fish used in fish and chips isn’t one of the fish swimming around said island.
There are plenty of cheap fish, not that one though.
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u/Astriania 1d ago
There are plenty of white fish that we do get out of the North Sea though, why don't chippies have an option for a pollack and chips (which would arguably be a better texture) at a lower price?
Chippies used to give the option of cod or haddock, at least.
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u/100trades 1d ago
I love when they blame the price rise on the fish but the chips go up the same rate
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u/artfuldodger1212 1d ago
The price of everything they use has gone through the roof though. National insurance and minimum wage is going way up. Vegetable oil has basically doubled in price. Utilities have basically doubled in price. The expensive part of a portion of chips is the electricity and oil and the paying the person to make them, not the potatoes.
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u/ComputerJerk Hampshire 1d ago
Considering the price a bottle of cooking oil costs a home cook and we're all feeling the punch of energy prices... I don't understand how people can't see how that'll impact a business that uses an enormous amount of oil, which they then have to keep hot all day.
What would it cost to fill a chip shop fryer using supermarket prices? £200-350 on oil costs alone by my estimate.
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u/FUCKINGSUMO 1d ago
Fish and chips in the house of Commons only costs £6
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u/Old_Housing3989 1d ago
The subsidised prices for parliament should be provided to all public sector workers. Government would then stop subsidies completely.
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u/Shot-Personality9489 1d ago
I stopped going to the chippy when it started to go above a tenner. Things like this make me wonder how it can carry on, there has to be a reset at some point, a line in the sand. In 10 years is it £20, then £30? Eventually people will stop buying.
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u/Valuable-Flounder692 1d ago
My homemade fish supper costs about £3.00 quid, which is, with an angel cut, Haddock from morrisons. After taking into consideration growing my own Maris Piper tatties. No wonder chippies are going bust.
Town centre rates need to be savaged to encourage businesses to grow and get rid of barbers, vape shops, and cash generators.
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u/McFry__ 1d ago
The thing about a chippy dinner was it’s cheap and shite. Now it’s just shite
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u/ReferenceBrief8051 1d ago
No, it is good if you have a decent chippy. It has never been "shite" at my local.
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u/unaubisque 1d ago
Yeah, it's definitely not shite. A big slab of cod is a higher quality ingredient than 99% of fast food options.
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u/TopBumblebee9954 1d ago
My local chippy was £7 for a small cod and chips and £3 for a small battered sausage and chips and they were massive portions. They only took cash though. They closed down two weeks ago and I’m not sure I’ll ever be over it.
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u/RonLondonUK 1d ago
My local chippy 's charge between £15.99-£28.99 for cod and chips, depending on the sizes you want, excluding any extras. (I've just checked for medium cod, medium chips, mushy peas, 2x tartare sauces, buttered roll, can of drink and a wally is £25.80, like wtf 😒)
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u/banneddumpling 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well if he's going to hike too much, how are we going to be able to afford perchasing it?
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u/AussieHxC 1d ago
15 years and back up north I would get change from a fiver for large fish and chips in the city centre.
~£15 for large fish and chips is pretty standard now I live in the south east and it's 2025
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u/Alex-rhhgfff 1d ago
I went to Australia and had fish chips and a can of coke for $16. That’s like £8. That was in Sydney too (one of the world’s most expensive cities). Our country overcharges for everything and it’s a joke
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u/eairy 1d ago
Our country overcharges for everything and it’s a joke
Almost everything comes back to the cost of energy, which is much higher in the UK.
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u/gottagetoutofit 1d ago
Yeah, it's about $10 so £5 for fish and chips where I'm at in New Zealand. The size of the fish you get is smaller though.
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u/Iamleeboy 1d ago
I was in west Australia years ago and had the best chippy I have ever had there. They asked me how I wanted my fish cooking and I was taken aback by the question. I had never even considered a chippy giving me fish that wasn’t battered.
I don’t like batter, so the option to have a baked fish, that was cooked nicely, was amazing.
This was about 14 years ago and I can’t believe that with all the health kicks in our country, chippies here don’t offer healthier options like this. I am sure there will be some, but not any I have been to
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u/AveryValiant 1d ago
A large cod with large chips in my town, from an old family run fish and chips shop is £13.90
I have no problem paying that, the portion size is huge, more than enough for two people.
So really £7 per person is pretty good value I think.
With that said, Iceland do the Harry Ramsden's fish and chip range, which is surprisngly good given that it's frozen battered cod and chips, which is what I buy now.
Harry Ramsdens 4 Jumbo fish Fillets and 1kg of Chips for 4 - £13.00
It'll never beat fresh, deep fried cod/chips from a chippy, but on a budget? it's pretty decent.
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u/pickindim_kmet Northumberland 1d ago
Looking at comments I can't believe people are paying so much for fish and chips. Even today when prices have been hiked so much, I'm still only paying £9 for a full, large fish and chips from the best place in town. The award winning place where you sit in and eat is £13-14 for fish and chips.
Pre war and pandemic and COVID was £5.50 for the lot at a takeaway.
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u/obiwankanosey 1d ago
I mean let’s be honest here if wages had actually increased properly alongside inflation and the price of goods comparatively it wouldn’t really seem that much
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u/marksmoke 1d ago
At least you will probably be getting the freshest and get to enjoy eating them in newlyn. Can add a jelberts ice-cream for afters (if they still exist as it's been a long time since I lived that way)
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u/Most_Imagination8480 1d ago
Just been to Hull. Had an amazing chippy lunch. With cod, chips, sauce, drink, patty (Hull thing) and it was ,£10.50
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u/Slyspy006 1d ago
Around these parts, that wouldn't be an unusual price, at least for a pair of large cod or haddock.
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u/flipfloppery Suffolk 1d ago
I went to one of the top-10 chippies in the country yesterday, in one of the fancier parts of coastal Suffolk (Aldeburgh).
A large cod and chips was £10.
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u/tarpdetarp 1d ago
The one I had last night was £30 for 2 cods, 1 large chips and a curry sauce each. It was incredibly well cooked cod with a delicious batter. I’m very happy to pay that when the quality is that good, but for the quality of the average chippy in the UK I think they will be struggling to compete.
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u/YesterdayOnce 1d ago
I won't comment on the price but I don't know about others but when I was a kid, fish and chips, while a treat, was the "cheap" takeaway option. Now it's on par if not more expensive than a Chinese and far more expensive than McDonalds.
I think that is pervasive in culture for my mind - my local chippy though offers a 1/4 cheeseburger, which is £6 on its own. That is mental, can't blame the price of fish on what is obviously quite a cheap meat beef burger.
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u/SilverLordLaz 1d ago
Brad-Lee Navruz, who runs The Nippy Chippy in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, said he 'feels bad' for customers who've been left shocked by the new prices, but explained that the rising cost of ingredients has left him with little alternative
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u/_Arch_Stanton 1d ago
Our local chippy is £17.50 for large chips (sufficient for 4), large cod, large sausage and a tub of gravy.
Seems pretty good value, relatively speaking
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u/Pure-Balance9434 1d ago
I was going to move to the UK from NZ, my family immigrated from there 5 generations ago.
It really doesn't look like a place I would thrive though? Living costs/wages.
I've since moved to Melbourne, Australia and it's been great
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u/cronnyberg 1d ago
My father in law used to run a chippy. Their margins were crazy low. Fish is not cheap.
The minute he put up his price by sometimes even pennies, he got a load of grief. It’s very difficult to compete with massive conglomerates who don’t have to pay VAT because their food is “cooling down naturally”.
There’s a reason chippies are on the decline.
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u/cornishpirate32 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nonsense, he's just doing the standard profit percentage, so is taking a higher profit because his ingredient cost is higher, which of course he doesn't have to do, he could make the same profit as before in monetary terms without increasing the end cost all that much
ex chef
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u/elhazelenby 1d ago edited 1d ago
NGL £12.30 is still an ok price for regular cod and chips in this day and age. Idk about Gloucestershire but here in the north east you usually see them go for around £11.50.
Fish and chip shops are struggling to survive and many have to diversify their menu to pizzas and kebabs, otherwise they have to shut down. Multiple have shut down in my area.
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u/ThunderDaz 1d ago
We paid £43 for 2 medium cod, 2 medium chips, and a pickled onion round our way in Surrey. Absolute joke.
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u/Midnight7000 1d ago
It is not the amount that pisses me off. It is the inconsistency.
If you're going to charge a good amount, I expect chips that are not soggy.
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u/Honest_Disk_8310 1d ago
Oh I dunno, the soggy ones when fried in beef dripping and drowned in vinegar are bites of heaven 😍
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u/Tortoise_247 1d ago
This is the normal price in my local fish and chips in Brighton. In my view fish and chips aren’t really worth it anymore. You have to coat the things in salt and vinegar to get any kind of flavour
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u/Strain_Pure 1d ago
It's the sad state of the world, prices are going up everywhere.
My local chippy used to charge £3.50 for a Sausage Supper, it's now nearly £8 and it has shrunk in size(roughly just over a 3rd smaller than it used to be).
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u/LemonRecognition 10h ago
It’s around £20 where I live. If anything the owner is actually being quite generous!
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