Expert Eye: Richard Long, owner, Harlees, Dorset & Wiltshire

Amid soaring fish prices and shifting customer habits, Richard is introducing new products, investing in technology, and seizing opportunities to help his family business adapt

Trade is a bit downbeat at the moment. It’s not terrible, but it’s slightly below last year. Early spring and summer were very good, but things have dipped since then. Consumers are certainly cutting back, and the rising prices of cod and haddock have definitely affected what people are buying. Our fish sales are down, and while sales of canned drinks are slightly down, bottled water sales have tripled because people are choosing cheaper options. Customers are watching their pennies these days.

To adapt, we’re looking at new options. I’m introducing hake at one branch at an introductory price of £6.99 with chips, which compares to £12 for cod and chips. We did try hake once before and it didn’t really sell, so it’s a bit of a test to see how it goes this time. Unless you try these things, you don’t know if they will work or not, and, although I’ve been in this business a very long time, you never stop learning. People’s eating habits are constantly changing, for example, we’re finding fries are more popular than chips now and so we have to keep up.

What worries me is the long-term damage that this situation could have, because if people stop buying fish and chips, we risk a whole generation which may grow up not used to buying fish and chips, unless they treat themselves at the seaside. It may be different up north, where fish and chips is a lot more traditional, but I fear that could happen here in the south.

I’m in no doubt that fish prices will come down eventually as stocks recover, but we’re constantly battling with increasing business costs such as the rise in National Insurance and wages. This government seems to be anti-business and I can’t see anything changing soon. In the meantime, we’re exploring different ways to keep the business moving, such as developing new chicken items and loaded fries. We’re looking at doubling, if not tripling, the amount of chicken items because it’s so much cheaper per kilo than cod. Self-service kiosks are being installed in every shop, because their upselling potential is phenomenal, sometimes adding 20–30% per customer. They also help promote new products, and there’s always the chance that they can reduce your staffing costs. You then don’t need so many people in the shop for busier times, so they can concentrate on service. In Swanage, 70–75% of sales now go through the kiosk.

The next 12 months will be about battening down the hatches. We’ve already closed two underperforming shops in Andover and Amesbury, focusing our resources on improving the remaining seven branches. It’s about getting more out of what we have, testing new products, and moulding ourselves into a business that can thrive in today’s market. Making money today is far tougher than when our family started in the 1940s. Back then, you opened the door and that was it; now you’ve got to constantly come up with new ideas and ways to work.

The way we look at it is this, however. Our shops are in towns of 15,000–20,000 people. As a general rule, that’s not big enough for the big boys to come along and open a branch there, because they need more footfall. That gives us an advantage, and so we’re looking to mimic some of what the larger operators do to grow our business locally. It’s challenging, but we’ll get through it.