Fish and Chips Are Now a Luxury Treat! Here’s Why They’re So Expensive

Fish and chips, that staple British meal, has grown quite dear in the past few years. He goes up more than 50% in the last five years, setting him out of the budget for most families to have it as a treat. Rising energy bills, seafood tariffs, and poor potato harvests are hiking costs to the point that shop owners and customers now have genuine cause for concern.

Fish and Chips Are Now a Luxury Treat! Here’s Why They’re So Expensive.

Fish and chips, an archetypal British meal, have achieved such fame that they have been loved by families throughout the UK. Be it at home cosied up on a Friday night or wrapped in paper on some windy beach, this dish has formed part of British culture for many years. This same luxury treat has witnessed sharp price rises recently, placing it more in the regime of an occasional special treat than as a regular meal.

Figures just published show that the average price of fish and chips has risen by more than 50 percent over the last five years, so this would move what used to be a relatively cheap meal into families costing nearly £10 per portion. If you are a family of four, then you could be having to fork out near £50 for a meal comprising fish, chips, mushy peas, and some soft drinks. That is a huge increase up from just a few years ago!

But what made this happen? What actually caused the price of fish and chips to shoot up?

Jon Long has been frying for more than 30 years, running Long John’s Fish and Chips in Dorset. He said he had never known anything like the “perfect storm” of rising costs hitting chip shops today, with prices being pushed up to record levels.

Among the top drivers of rising prices, energy prices have surged hugely. Running a fish-and-chips establishment involves the use of a lot of electricity and gas, making the increasing energy prices a nightmare and very expensive to keep the fryers sizzling. Added to these costs is the rise in the cost of labor, squeezing businesses like Jon’s.

The other major factor, though, is tariffs on seafood imports—from Russia, in particular. In March 2022, the United Kingdom government slapped a huge 35% tariff on Russian seafood imports due to the invasion of Ukraine. British chip shops paid the price directly as much of the fish used within fish and chips cuisine comes from Russian waters.

First off, there’s a problem with potatoes. It might go without saying, but in order to have those satisfying, crispy taters with that golden hue, you need potatoes. And recently, the UK and Europe in general have been suffering from bad potato harvests due to poor weather. “Dramatic” is how confident potato markets analyst Cedric Porter described the rise that has taken place in potato prices. A smaller crop last year combined with poor weather this year is pushing up the prices, which the majority of farmers have never seen.

Accordingly, these all inserted, in one way or another, to sustain the situation in which the price for fish and chips is now very much higher compared to some years ago. In fact, the average dish price for July 2024 reached £9.88 compared to £6.48 in July 2019, according to data provided by the Office for National Statistics. That’s an increase of £3.40 in only five years!

The escalating costs are worrying for Jon Long. He says he’s never known anything like it in 30 years as a profession. “More and more pubs, hotels, chip shops, bakers, and other businesses are shutting down due to crippling costs,” he said. “It’s not a cheap meal anymore. I think it’s still good value, but it has become more expensive.”

Now even Angela Cartwright, who owns Kingfisher Fish Bar in Salford, agrees. People have a tendency to think that fish and chips are a cheap meal, but the reality is totally different, she says. “People think that fish and chips is a cheap meal, and it just isn’t. People are prepared to pay £15-20 for a pizza, but they’re not prepared to pay it for a portion of fish and chips.”

The future of fish and chips as an affordable meal really hangs in the balance. Shop owners, including Jon Long, hope for the best, but the current economic climate makes the future hard to predict. It looks, for now, that fish and chips are on the way to only being a luxury treat rather than a stereotypically revered, quite common food among British families.