My CoStar News Hotels’ colleague Stephanie Ricca has long had an index by which she judges hotels, prices and standards, and that index is shrimp.
The ebbs and flows of the industry can be seen, at least in Ricca’s logic, via the prism of shrimp size, shrimp number and shrimp quality.
In my native United Kingdom, our index is more proletarian.
Of course, it is fish n’ chips, that staple of British life.
Hotels here serve it just as often as do High Street chippies. They might charge a little more or be a little more inventive in how they prepare and serve it, but both sources no doubt have seen a dramatic rise in costs related to what is the humblest of dishes.
I thought, okay, I need to construct a Fish n’ Chips Index, and this now is an ongoing matter.
There is a cost index for fish — the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Fish Price Index — but that is not surprising given the concerns on overfishing around the world.
Some online also have had a go at moaning a little about the price of a portion of fish n’ chips, even listing some percentage price increases in year-on-year terms — that’s more like it if you sit with scores of STR and CoStar folk every day — but I cannot find a nuts-and-bolts index of data, increases, comparisons and the like.
Looking online to try to ascertain what the median price is reveals a cost of approximately £11.71, and as no chippie, restaurant or hotel likely will not want to round off the price, that essentially equals £12.
In 2024, from what I can see, the price was £9.50 for what the Brits call “small cod and chips.”
Cod often has been off the menu due to fears of their sustainability, but the Brits generally want cod if they can get it, not tilapia or even rock and plaice.
That’s a jump in 12 months of approximately 23%.
From the start of COVID-19, from what I can see, there has been a 52% rise, also due to rises in energy costs and other parts of the supply chain, increases in taxes and a lower supply of fish.
In 2023, the government’s official statistician, the Office for National Statistics, said that the price for a portion of fish and chips had risen in year-on-year terms by 19%. The average percentage increase in “products from restaurants, cafes and dancing establishments” rose 10%.
The Leeds-based National Federation of Fish Friers is keeping close watch on the issue.
That organization holds the annual National Fish & Chips Awards, which was last held this Feb. at the 1,023-room Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London.
One of the hotel’s restaurants has a £24 main dish, Fried haddock and frites, which is fish n’ chips in another name.
Average overheads for a hotel restaurant, I imagine, would be higher than a High Street chip shop.
Would you want to have a beer with your fish n’ chips?
Beer is another staple of British life that has seen dramatic price increases, too.
Some of us thought the world essentially had ended when a pint of beer rose to £1.
I think that was in the late 1980s?
Off to do another index!
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