Fish Fridays Forever

At the MSC we are on a mission to end overfishing. Our MSC certified fish and chip shops play a vital role in educating their customers and in ensuring every Fish Friday is a sustainable one.

From around 80 MSC certified fish and chip shops around the country, we’ve talked with eleven regional heroes that really stand out – businesses that have gone above and beyond to put sustainability at the heart of their businesses.

As Sustainable Seafood Week 2021 launches, the MSC UK and Ireland team go behind the batter with our regional heroes to hear about their journey to sustainability.

Born to fry!

“The business has been in the family for over 100 years and through five generations of the Colman's family so you could say we were born to fry,” says Richard Ord, of his fish and chip shop Colmans, in South Shields.

“But our love for what we do, with only the best quality produce coupled with an amazing team are how we got where we are today.”

While some of our MSC certified fish and chip shops are run by new entrants into the market, many are family run businesses with several having been in the industry through multiple generations.

Colmans has been family owned since 1905, starting life as a beach shack and moving to its current premises on Ocean Road in 1926.

The grandparents of David Henley, from Henley’s, in Wivenhoe, Essex, had a fish and chip business in Birkenhead, which was “bombed during the war due to its proximity to the Liverpool docks”.

“We have batter running through our veins,” laughs David. Having been in the business for forty years, David has witnessed many changes and says the industry has had to adapt to various challenges, such as how to market themselves effectively when competing with large global brands.

Some of our regional heroes have been founded more recently, launched by property developers, former in-house chefs and two ex-members of the Royal Navy, Calum Richardson, at The Bay, Stonehaven, and Pete Fraser, from Fraser's Fish and Chips and Harbour Lights, in Cornwall.

Pete “finished a career in the Royal Navy flying in Sea King helicopters hunting Russian submarines in the North Atlantic and decided fish and chips was for me”. The local press had a field day with headlines like ‘From flying to frying!’, he says.

Richard Foster, from Fish & Chips at Weston Grove, in Chester, was a potato merchant for 30 years while his wife and business partner Josette worked in education. Josette’s grandparents had run a chippy in a village near York so when they bought Weston Grove in 2016, it was great to “keep up the family tradition”, she says.

Passionate about sustainability

Whatever the route they took to being involved in one of the nation’s best-loved dishes, all of these regional heroes share a passion for sustainable seafood. As Josette explains, she was first inspired to be involved with sustainability when watching and reading ‘Life on Earth’ by David Attenborough as a child.

“As time went on, I became more and more concerned about the damage we were doing to the planet” she explains. With a former career in teaching hospitality management and the importance of sustainability, she has been excited to put her “strong beliefs and views into practice” at Weston Grove.

The couple dish up MSC certified cod and haddock sourced from Iceland and their customers “love to see where their fish has been caught, they can track the trawlers fishing in Iceland”.

Calum at the Bay serves MSC certified Scottish haddock landed into Peterhead, and with the sea on his doorstep at Stonehaven Bay, sustainability is “a real passion”, as he is keen to see this historic local industry and fishery continue to thrive. David Henley, who cooks up MSC certified cod and haddock from Norway, agrees:

“For my entire life I have been passionate about sustainability,” he adds. “The provenance and traceability of our fish is our number one concern before we even agree to purchase. It is vital we all engage in sustainability as it’s the only way to guarantee we have a viable future.”

John Molnar, from The Cod’s Scallops, made up of four venues across Nottingham and Market Harborough, trained as a chef and has brought his passion for fresh ingredients and excellence into his fish and chip business.

“Sustainability became important when we opened in 2011 because I wanted to ensure my children and my great grandchildren could enjoy what amazing food the ocean has to offer long into the future,” he explains.

Business with a conscience

It is certainly true that our regional heroes are “businesses with a conscience”, as John Lavery, from Fish City, Belfast describes his. It was the first fish and chip business on the island of Ireland to become MSC certified in 2014.

“We saw this as an industry which had not changed very much in decades and thought we could do something interesting and new,” he says.

The restaurant had a kid’s club which educated nine and ten year olds on the oceans and fish species. “We felt a little hypocritical not doing anything ourselves and lecturing others so we decided to work to being MSC certified,” he laughs.

Andrew Wilkinson, from Trenchers in Whitby, who cooks up MSC certified Icelandic cod, Scottish and Norwegian haddock, prawns and mussels, says he noticed a growing interest from customers around where produce was from around fifteen years ago.

“Initially, MSC seemed daunting for a business of this size,” he says. “However, once we started the process, I was surprised how straight forward it was. We very quickly moved more and more species to MSC certified.”

Millers in Haxby, York is a fourth-generation family run fish and chip shop who often use their platform to raise awareness about the importance of serving sustainable seafood using the blue MSC ecolabel.

"Being MSC certified sends out a really strong message that people want to hear,” says Nick Miller, who runs the business with his father David. “It says that, as a fish and chip shop, you are doing the right thing – not just by the environment we live in now, but for future generations.”

“Why wouldn’t you consider sustainability over the alternative?” asks Lee Penaluna, from Penaluna’s Famous Fish & Chips in the Brecon Beacons, Wales. “Why would you want to exhaust the products that serve your business?

“As a regional hero, it falls on us to continue promoting all the best practices of the industry and to promote quality fish and chips which you can only get by using quality products.”

Kyriacos Karoulla, from Brockley's Rock, in London, who learned the trade from his Great Uncle Frank, agrees: “Healthy oceans are vitally important to us while continuing with the nation’s iconic fish and chips heritage. This should be top of agenda for all serving fish not just chippies alone.”

The future is fish and chips!

All of these regional heroes have sustainability running through everything they do. Kyriacos, whose customers can enjoy MSC certified cod and haddock from the Barents Sea and North Atlantic plaice, says: “We applied this ethos through other parts of our business from biodegradable boxes to paper bags.”

Lee uses green lighting, smart metres, weekly deliveries of main products and significant recycling measures. “We train our staff on the best cooking methods to ensure there is minimal waste from the cooking medium to the finished product,” he adds.

Many of our heroes wish to open second, third, fourth or even fifth branches in the future. While all say that consistency and quality is key, sustainability has to be at the heart as well.

As more fish and chips shops become MSC certified, more customers will be able to enjoy their seafood suppers knowing that they are also protecting fish stocks for generations to come.

As David Henley says: “The future is bright. The future is fish and chips.”