Fish and Chips

[Ferrij]

Im not saying it’s easy running a business, but i get the sense that many are getting greedy since the initial round of post covid inflation. Every time my wife and i go to the supermarket we find at least one or two items in our trolley have increased by around 10 to 20% and this is not just annual inflation but often happens about every 3 months per product!!
Last year we were quoted £780 to put up a 6 foot piece of guttering….. has the world gone mad??
Maybe it’s become more visible since retiring, but even my kids have stopped going out for meals and are complaining about the cost of living far outstripping their wage increases. Someone somewhere must be getting very wealthy!!

[pwa]

Im not saying it’s easy running a business, but i get the sense that many are getting greedy since the initial round of post covid inflation. Every time my wife and i go to the supermarket we find at least one or two items in our trolley have increased by around 10 to 20% and this is not just annual inflation but often happens about every 3 months per product!!
Last year we were quoted £780 to put up a 6 foot piece of guttering….. has the world gone mad??
Maybe it’s become more visible since retiring, but even my kids have stopped going out for meals and are complaining about the cost of living far outstripping their wage increases. Someone somewhere must be getting very wealthy!!

I wonder who. I know people who work in supermarkets, and managers are under constant pressure to cut the wage bill and not spend on much else either. One bloke I was talking to maintains the building infrastructure of a big store and told me he had been instructed to carry out any repairs he already has the materials for, but not fix anything that would require expenditure.

[Bonefishblues]

Im not saying it’s easy running a business, but i get the sense that many are getting greedy since the initial round of post covid inflation. Every time my wife and i go to the supermarket we find at least one or two items in our trolley have increased by around 10 to 20% and this is not just annual inflation but often happens about every 3 months per product!!
Last year we were quoted £780 to put up a 6 foot piece of guttering….. has the world gone mad??
Maybe it’s become more visible since retiring, but even my kids have stopped going out for meals and are complaining about the cost of living far outstripping their wage increases. Someone somewhere must be getting very wealthy!!

I wonder who. I know people who work in supermarkets, and managers are under constant pressure to cut the wage bill and not spend on much else either. One bloke I was talking to maintains the building infrastructure of a big store and told me he had been instructed to carry out any repairs he already has the materials for, but not fix anything that would require expenditure.

They're low margin businesses, so the controls in place need to be very tight indeed if they are to be profitable.

[Carlton green]

Im not saying it’s easy running a business, but i get the sense that many are getting greedy since the initial round of post covid inflation. Every time my wife and i go to the supermarket we find at least one or two items in our trolley have increased by around 10 to 20% and this is not just annual inflation but often happens about every 3 months per product!!
Last year we were quoted £780 to put up a 6 foot piece of guttering….. has the world gone mad??
Maybe it’s become more visible since retiring, but even my kids have stopped going out for meals and are complaining about the cost of living far outstripping their wage increases. Someone somewhere must be getting very wealthy!!

I wonder who. I know people who work in supermarkets, and managers are under constant pressure to cut the wage bill and not spend on much else either. One bloke I was talking to maintains the building infrastructure of a big store and told me he had been instructed to carry out any repairs he already has the materials for, but not fix anything that would require expenditure.

They're low margin businesses, so the controls in place need to be very tight indeed if they are to be profitable.

It’s simple enough really, the people at the top of successful businesses get paid increasingly more and that’s got to come from somewhere. There’s also a mentality that says I’ll take the customer for every penny that I can, around here local tradesmen have more business than they know what to do with and can name their own price. Too dear? Tough, that’s the price, save up and let me know when you can afford.

It might be co-incidental but since we left the EU a lot of stuff has become much dearer, both goods and labour too.

[mattheus]

I was chatting to a tradesman who’d had some work done on his own home, mates rates etc. The tradesman’s ‘mate’ worked for a local business who bought items for pennies (at wholesale / trade prices) and sold them onto customers for pounds. i.e. a massive mark-up on popular products and fine so long as the customer doesn’t know any better.

Welcome to rip-off Britain … and it has ever been thus.

You should have asked the tradesman to fetch some shopping for you - at cost price, obviously!

[Bonefishblues]

I wonder who. I know people who work in supermarkets, and managers are under constant pressure to cut the wage bill and not spend on much else either. One bloke I was talking to maintains the building infrastructure of a big store and told me he had been instructed to carry out any repairs he already has the materials for, but not fix anything that would require expenditure.

They're low margin businesses, so the controls in place need to be very tight indeed if they are to be profitable.

It’s simple enough really, the people at the top of successful businesses get paid increasingly more and that’s got to come from somewhere. There’s also a mentality that says I’ll take the customer for every penny that I can, around here local tradesmen have more business than they know what to do with and can name their own price. Too dear? Tough, that’s the price, save up and let me know when you can afford.

It might be co-incidental but since we left the EU a lot of stuff has become much dearer, both goods and labour too.

You should go into business consultancy. You can see what millions of shareholders, large and small, institutional and individual fail to. You'll be able to name your price too - but someone of your integrity would do it for Minimum Wage, I'm sure.

[al_yrpal]

Theres no doubt that there are some rip off merchants out there but reading what folks have posted here I dont think fish and chip shops are amongst them. Fish seems to have escalated hugely in price and the shops are big users of electricity (thanks Ed!). If a shop is in a less well off area it will struggle.

Al

[Nearholmer]

This’ll upset you all.

1975.

Based on that random sample of one, you could buy between three and five portions of fish and chips for an hours work at median wage (inflation was so rampant at the time that it depended a bit on which month, I think!).

Now, it appears that you can buy one, maybe two if you’re lucky, portions for an hours work at median wage.

[Paulatic]

1975….I remember it well. The fish and chips might have been cheaper but the money to buy them was hard earned. in my prime, I often worked double shifts of 70-80 hours/ week.
This was the basic tax rate forever engraved in my memory.

Imagine the outcry from young people now.

[slowster]

I happened to read these articles recently, one which includes a bit of the history of how the British acquired a taste for fish and chips, and another giving an example of the difficulties the UK fishing industry has exporting what it catches.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ainability

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... al-with-eu

Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is not why fish and chips from a fish and chip shop are now so much more expensive, but why so few of us eat fish and seafood caught in our own inshore waters? There are evidently multiple reasons, but it is a topsy-turvy situation where there is little market for fish which is caught in UK waters and which is instead exported to Spain, France and other countries, where it is is highly prized as some of the best fish in the world.

Obviously moules et frites is not a take-away meal like fish and chips (and I think fish and seafood generally do not suit take-aways), but mussels are cheap and we should be eating them instead of exporting them.

[al_yrpal]

Personally like Moules and often used to prepare them but have a Mrs that wont even eat shrimps and prawns. But, we often eat fish besides Fridays fish and chips. Fish Pie is a favourite, smoked haddock, salmon and I often have a sardine salad as a lunch.

As to why we dont eat more fish its just habit.

Al

[Bonefishblues]

Not a sardine fan, but a favourite oily fish is a tinned mackerel, flavours, various. Tremendous value, too, I'll have a couple of tins as a lunch quite often and I'll always have half a dozen or so in the cupboard.
Breakfast tomorrow is a pair of kippers from Port of Lancaster Smokehouse, which I buy in 6kg packs and freeze. Also very good value (and they happen to have a sale this weekend I noticed when I realised it was my last pair)

[al_yrpal]

In France they have sardine shops, huge variety of gaily painted tins. I often have smoked mackerel too but not from tins.
Mrs is tending towards a sort of vegetarianism so as the main cook I will have to get more imaginative!

Al

[Bonefishblues]

In France they have sardine shops, huge variety of gaily painted tins. I often have smoked mackerel too but not from tins.
Mrs is tending towards a sort of vegetarianism so as the main cook I will have to get more imaginative!

Al

Becoming quite a thing in the UK too (and has long been a thing overseas as you say)

https://www.instagram.com/thetinnedfishmarket/

https://www.instagram.com/hevvafish/

[axel_knutt]

It's an inevitable consequence of economic growth, because one man's rising income is another's increased labour cost. Growth makes labour intensive activities more and more expensive, and automated activities proportionally cheaper because automation is what causes growth in the first place. The public sector becomes a larger proportion of the economy, appliances are cheaper to replace than repair, and food's cheaper to cook yourself. How much would your dinner cost if you were paying yourself the market rate for preparing it?

From a check I made at Medway YHA in 2010: the cheapest breakfast, packed lunch and dinner on the menu came to a total of £20, compared with self catering at an average of £4.76 a day for far more calories. The bed was only £16, so no wonder they're keen to get you eating hostel meals as well.

How much does a shop charge for servicing a bike? How much would your furniture cost if Chippendale was still carving it all by hand? How much would a telly cost if it was still all hand-wired on tag strips?