City News

A Birmingham fish and chip shop has been named as the best in the Midlands* and one of the 10 best in the UK, in the national Fish & Chip Shop of the Year competition, organised by Seafish, the authority on seafood.

Great British Eatery of Ladywood Middleway in Birmingham will now go chip to chip against nine other ‘high-frying’ shops at the national final in a bid to win the highly coveted title of National Fish & Chip Shop of the Year.

The annual competition recognises the quality, value and choice offered by fish and chip shops across the UK and rewards only the nation’s best with the sought-after title. Previous winners have seen their sales increase by 40 per cent within months of winning the competition.

Now facing the ultimate challenge, owner of Great British Eatery, Conrad Brunton, must present to a panel of industry experts to make his bid for the national title. Each shop must provide the judges with information about its business before answering questions from the panel of leading industry figures on a wide variety of business and industry-related topics including sustainable sourcing, health and safety and maintaining product quality.

On reaching the UK top 10, Conrad commented: “We are absolutely blown away to have made the finals. We have achieved so much in the 16 months since we opened and I am so proud of all my staff for their hard work. We are all really excited for the finals in January and hope to put Birmingham very much on the culinary map.”

Nikki Hawkins, competition judge and project manager for the competition at Seafish, said: “The standard of entrants continues to increase each year and we are witnessing fish and chips shops paying an increasing amount of attention to sustainable sourcing as well as offering quality, value and choice. This industry has come a long way in 22 years and competition for the national title only gets fiercer each year.”

The winner will be presented with the champion’s crown by popular TV chef, Aldo Zilli, at a ceremony on 21 January at the Riverbank Park Plaza in London.

With nearly 276 million meals sold each year from over 10,500 shops, fish and chips remains the nation’s favourite takeaway. Devotees can also tuck into their fish and chips knowing they contain 36 per cent less calories than a chicken korma and pilau rice, and 42 per cent less fat than a doner kebab with pitta and salad. Recent studies also showed that fish and chips had the lowest salt content of all the takeaways tested.