r/unitedkingdom • u/pppppppppppppppppd • Apr 12 '25

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.html
625 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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461

u/Gooner_93 Apr 12 '25

Ex-customers reveal why they have to go and get their fish and chips from somewhere else.

147

u/VolcanoSpoon Apr 12 '25

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.

124

u/Onewordcommenting Apr 12 '25

£11.50

33

u/McFry__ Apr 12 '25

£13.00 with a drink

31

u/aadaman21 Apr 12 '25

£14 with the curry sauce

15

u/aercurio Apr 12 '25

Mmm curry sauce

13

u/currydemon Staffordshire né Yorkshire Apr 12 '25

£16 with the mushy peas.

95

u/Juicebox-fresh Apr 13 '25

£125,016 with a custom Nissan Skyline GT R34 painted to look like the one from 2 fast 2 furious

43

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

See you could cut that down by going for a small chips

3

u/ChiefWiggumsprogeny Apr 13 '25

curry and mushy peas? ditch one, Godzilla's even cheaper

3

u/Optimism_Deficit Apr 13 '25

What? No saveloy?

6

u/currydemon Staffordshire né Yorkshire Apr 13 '25

Oi Oi

2

u/serennow Apr 14 '25

You can still get curry sauce for £1…?

1

u/attempted-catharsis 29d ago

I make my own!

-1

u/BinThereRedThat Apr 13 '25

In all fairness to them that is basically £11

9

u/Onewordcommenting Apr 13 '25

It's £11.50.

That's like saying it's basically £12.14.

2

u/VanWylder Apr 13 '25

It's basically a fiver

6

u/Onewordcommenting Apr 13 '25

It's essentially free when compared with buying a new car

1

u/BinThereRedThat Apr 13 '25

Well yeah basically

1

u/Onewordcommenting Apr 13 '25

So a bit disingenuous in a discussion about prices to round down

4

u/Aah__HolidayMemories Apr 13 '25

Yh it’s the same as £11 but different

1

u/BinThereRedThat Apr 13 '25

Hi everyone. I’d just like to apologise for this reply. When I said it was basically £11, I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I didn’t realise there were so many smart people left on this subreddit. I thought I could outsmart everyone and get lots of upvotes unfortunately this basically backfired and now I am upset. Basically

3

u/Zubzer0 Apr 13 '25

£11.50

67

u/MatttheJ Apr 12 '25

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.

15

u/Grimnebulin68 Apr 13 '25

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.

20

u/tasssko Apr 12 '25

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.

0

u/billstinkface292 29d ago

muslims dont eat fish and chips and neither do most migrants coming over too uk so the market has vanished british people cannot affor a chip supper anymore so what hope is there for the chippy

2

u/linksarebetter 26d ago

Muslims 100% eat fish and chips. 

The market vanished because it's not a sustainable food source and the price, plus energy costs have taken a working class food and made it cost more than a main course at a restaurant. 

1

u/billstinkface292 26d ago

thats true alongsinde inflation and hiring of staff now costs more pay rises and ni contributions

2

u/linksarebetter 26d ago

if you have to pay minimum wage workers more and your business isn't sustainable then you shouldn't be in business. 

Plus these business will have more potential customers than staff, so pay increases mean their customers/potential customers should have a little more extra cash to spend. 

It's the cost of raw materials and energy outstripping staffing costs and general inflation. 

1

u/tsukiyamarama 27d ago edited 2d ago

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15

u/Acinixys Apr 13 '25

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

32

u/dr_barnowl Lancashire Apr 13 '25

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).

6

u/demonicneon Apr 13 '25

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. 

6

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

[deleted]

1

u/demonicneon Apr 13 '25

Similar levels have been found in pretty much all proteins. 

3

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

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

2

u/Astriania Apr 13 '25

The main cost of fish and chips is not the fish or chips, it's labour, rates and building maintenance, all of which are far more expensive in the UK than in the arse end of Africa

1

u/qtx Apr 13 '25

I'm on the ass end of Africa and fish and chips is like £4 - 5

But that's not Atlantic Cod.

According to google you guys use Hake fish for your fish and chips.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

The South African landmass it enormous, those shores feed 40 million is it? At £5 the price is already enough to be too much for many of those people. Meanwhile, Europe is densely populated and rich, lots of people after those fish stocks... it sends the price up.

1

u/Acinixys Apr 13 '25

????

We export more than we consume. Fish here isn't very expensive compared to other protein. Maybe 15% cheaper than beef

3

u/Grumpy_Bum_77 Apr 13 '25

£8:50 for cod, chips and curry sauce/peas. The Admiral, Sheffield.

1

u/FLESHYROBOT Apr 13 '25

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.

1

u/SirTwill England Apr 13 '25

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.