HASTINGS, England — Ever since she was old enough to walk, Terrilea Coglan was climbing aboard fishing boats that set sail each morning from the rocky beachfront of Hastings to harvest the key ingredient in Britain’s most iconic dish: fish and chips.
The day’s catch travels just a short way from the boats up to the seaside fish and chips shops, or “chippies,” that pride themselves as much in the freshness of the fish as in the secret recipes for their gooey batter.
Coglan’s parents and grandparents were in the fish trade, and now her sons are, too. But these days Coglan fears they may be the last.
“It’s our way of life,” says Coglan, leaning against a fishing boat during a break from hawking filets at her beachside kiosk. “It’s in my blood. It’s part of me. And it’s quite sad to think that it might not be here for much longer.”
All along the British coast, towns like Hastings are being squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis that’s hit the supply chain behind fish and chips, pushing up prices beyond what some are willing to pay for a humble, if comforting, weeknight meal.
The cost of diesel to power the fishing boats, the sunflower oil to fry the fish and the electricity to run the friers have all skyrocketed as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, figures from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics show.
Fish that Coglan used to sell for a couple of British pounds (about $2) per bag now go for a couple of pounds per fish. Coglan says her customers complain constantly. Recently, the dwindling revenues forced her to get a second job, also in fish, as a salesperson at another monger’s shop.
“It’s always been a cheap thing, fish, and now it’s just really not,” she said.
Over the next few years, the National Federation of Fish Friers, which represents “chippies,” predicts that a third of the U.K.’s roughly 10,500 chippies may close for good, while the company Sarson’s, which makes the malt vinegar served ubiquitously alongside the fried fish, has predicted as many as half could shutter.
The high prices are threatening a billion-dollar business and a staple of the British menu: Every year, Brits eat more than 382 million orders of fish and chips, the federation says.
In an interview, Andrew Crook, the federation’s president, said that while energy prices have started to level off, ingredients are still hammering restaurant budgets. He said chippies are now buying cod for prices two-thirds more expensive than what they were before the Ukraine war, while a sack of potatoes costs double what it did.
It’s a daily struggle for cafes like Maggie’s, tucked in between old fishing huts just steps from the fish market. The restaurant has been a fixture of the Hastings fish and chips scene for decades, and when the doors open at noon, the smell of crisp, golden-brown fish wafts out of the door and greets the line of locals and tourists waiting on the staircase for a table.
Lionel Copley, the restaurant’s co-owner, says costs for his ingredients have gone up 30% to 40%, forcing the restaurant to up its prices. A plate of cod and chips eaten in store now goes for 14.90 British pounds (about $18), putting it out of reach for many looking for a cheap weekday meal.
“Some of the competitors are reducing their hours. Some are reducing the quality, staffing levels,” Copley says. “Everybody’s trying to make some sort of cuts, so not to pass it on to a customer.”
In recent months, chippies and their supporters have begun a campaign to “Save the chippies,” urging customers to keep supporting their local fish and chips joint even if the fried meal costs a bit more than it used to. Sarson’s, the vinegar maker, launched a “Fryday” promotion to reimburse 50 customers each Friday for a fish and chips purchase that they promote on social media.
As he doled out tables to a line of waiting diners during the lunchtime rush, Copley said he was hard-pressed to define what British culinary culture would look like if the chippies disappeared.
“It’s like Sunday lunches, fish and chips, and going down to the pub,” Copley said. “It’s what we do.”
CORRECTION (Jan. 3, 2024, 8:00 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Maggie’s co-owner. He is Lionel Copley, not Cobley.
