Third of fish and chip shops under threat amid soaring costs and post-Brexit

Hundreds of fish and chip shops in Britain are struggling to survive after their costs soared in the global economic crisis and after Brexit.

A third of chippies are at risk of going bust this year due to a “perfect storm” of price pressures, according to insolvency firm Company Debt.

In just a year, prices for cod and haddock are up 75 per cent, sunflower oil is up 60 per cent, and flour is up 40 per cent, it added, with cost of potatoes also jumping.

Inflation reached a 40-year peak of nine per cent in April, the highest in the G7 group of wealthy nations (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada) and is projected to rise further.

“Fish prices have gone up extortionately; oil prices have gone up extortionately; and everything across the whole spectrum that we sell has gone up extortionately,” said Bally Singh, at Hooked Fish and Chips, in West Drayton, west London.

Cod and chips at his chippie now costs £9.50, compared to £7.95 a year ago.

Mr Singh said if he passed on all the higher costs, the price would be closer to £11.

“We’re finding it a struggle to keep our prices reasonable and competitive compared to other fast foods that are in the area, and we’ve actually seen a decline in fish sales and customers walking through the door,” he added.

Some of the recent difficulties for fish and chip shops began after Brexit, distant-waters trawler company UK Fisheries said, estimating that the amount of Arctic cod Britain is allowed to catch in 2022 reduced to around 40 per dcent of what it was before leaving the European Union.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up fuel and electricity prices, further increasing the cost of catching, and frying, fish. The war has sent cooking oil, fertiliser and flour prices higher too.

Cod and haddock are sourced in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, and the war has heightened uncertainty over those supplies.

In March, the British government listed Russian white fish as among goods to be hit with a 35 per cent tariff as part of sanctions in response to the invasion of Ukraine. It has paused the move, for now, while the impact is investigated.

Sunflower oil is the principle agricultural commodity the UK imports from Ukraine and the government says it is working to substitute it with other vegetable oils: for instance, receiving extra rapeseed shipments from Australia after a strong harvest there.

A spokesperson for Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs said it was “working closely with industry, including the National Federation of Fish Friers, to mitigate the challenges that they are facing.”

However, the federation said fish and chip shops were facing their biggest ever crisis.

“I’m getting daily phone calls from people that are worried that they’re going to go out of business,” said NFFF President Andrew Crook.

Footfall data from Springboard shows shopper numbers in British high streets are 15 per cent down from 2019, pre-pandemic, levels.

Fish and chip shops are more exposed than some bigger businesses, said Yael Selfin, Chief Economist at KPMG UK, because they lack buying power to strike a better deals when global prices rise.

“We are expecting consumers and households to reassess what they’re spending on and potentially cut down,” Ms Selfin added.