Ryan Hughes met his future wife, Kimberly, when she walked into the fish and chip shop where he worked behind the counter. This week, the couple embraced on stage as the restaurant they founded in a southern Welsh town took top prize at the UK’s annual National Fish and Chip Awards.
Together with his family, Hughes, a fish fryer since his teenage years, bought Ship Deck in Caerphilly five years ago. They could hardly have picked a worse time: a year and a refurbishment later, the COVID pandemic struck.
Now, he said, business is booming.
“Price hikes, COVID – we will not be defeated by anything,” Hughes told IntraFish at the awards ceremony in London on Wednesday. “We’re a small shop, and there’s always a queue out the door.”
Difficult times
In recent years, the UK’s approximately 10,000 fish and chip shops have experienced some of the most difficult times in their 160-year history, hit by the pandemic and soaring prices for a number of raw materials, exacerbated by a prohibitive tariff on imports of Russian-caught whitefish.
This year, the industry is concerned about absorbing a minimum wage increase in the UK, as well as a rebound in whitefish prices and persistently high potato prices.
“Fish has started to go up again, so obviously we’re a little bit concerned,” said Andrew Crook, president of the UK’s National Federation of Fish Friers (NFFF), which organizes the annual National Fish and Chip Awards. “These things are out of our hands. We’ve just got to work with it.”
Hughes said he buys some Scottish haddock and sources his main fish product, cod, from Norway – always from the same trawler, a vessel named Ramoen, operated by the Norwegian company of the same name.
“We’ve always stuck to that trawler, regardless of price,” he said. “Once you find a good product, you need to maintain it.”
To attract younger customers, Ship Deck has introduced a number of alternative menu items over the years – brisket burgers, seafood trays, vegan fish and chips – but Hughes said his shop is renowned for its cod and twice-cooked chips.
The shop – which won in the category of ‘Takeaway of the Year’ – employs 16 people and goes through 90 to 100 sacks of potatoes every week, he said.
“We’re forever growing – and getting busier."
Crook said the national awards, attended this year by Norway's Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Policy, Cecilie Myrseth, had proven to be a strong platform for past winners.
“It makes such a difference to their business,” Crook told IntraFish. “It doubles turnover, often. It makes [the shop] a tourist destination; people travel to go and visit. And for the people that work in the business, it’s a reaffirmation that they’re doing everything right.”
The winner in the ‘Restaurant of the Year’ category was Knights Fish Restaurant in Glastonbury, southwest England.
