Essential pieces of kit for any chippy include a frying range and a till system, that’s a given. We take a deep dive into what other equipment fish and chip shop owners can’t work without
Chris Ioannides, Chester’s Fish & Chips, Chesterfield, Derby
“For me, there are two pieces of equipment that I wouldn’t be able to work without. The first is my Thermapen temperature probe. It fits in my pocket, it’s ever so quick to flip open and it gives you a one-second read so you’re not waiting. The other is my really long pincers. A lot of traditional friers will use smaller ones, whereas I’ve got these huge 16inch ones that look like BBQ tongs, but you can really dig around in the fryer with them!”
Alex Papaioannou, Bearded Sailor, Pudsey, Leeds
“I would go with the flow cup. Essential for keeping batter consistent amongst the frying team.”
John Molnar, The Cod’s Scallops, Nottingham
“We’ve got a mini Rational Combi Oven in each shop and it means we can bake our pies in very small batches because it cooks very quickly. We can also cook a baked piece of cod in three minutes, which is exactly how long it takes to fry. The same with salmon, so it just means we have sped up our cooking process on our fish selection and, because it has the steam element, you can really keep the moisture in baked fish. You can timer everything so it’s really easy for staff to use and it’s self cleaning; you put a cleaning tablet in on a Sunday evening and Monday morning it’s brand new.”
Stuart Devine, The Ashvale, north-east Scotland
“Mine would be my microphone and sound system to be able to run our charity nights in our restaurant. We hold about 200 a year now and we get booked up a year in advance. Each night can attract up to 100 people at a time. We raise around £200,000 a year for charity and we’re heading for that figure again this year.”
Geoff Whitehead, Whiteheads Fish & Chips, Hornsea, East Yorkshire
“I could run my shop without it but certainly making it easier is my Bold batter mixer as it contributes quite significantly to the way your batter is made. If you use it alongside a timer and flow cup it gives a really consistent batter compared to if you do it by hand. I remember before we got this shop, my family used to do it by hand. I’ve done it by hand here but I find you don’t get anywhere near as good as with the mechanical batter mixer. “
David Nicolaou, Aukley Friery, Auckley, Doncaster
“I bought a Foster 75kg Control Thaw cabinet a few years ago and it was a massive game changer for us as the quality of the product went up significantly. You pop your fish in it, set it on a 17 hour defrost and it gradually defrosts all the fish while keeping all the minerals. When you defrost ambiently, you can’t control the temperature and you can lose up to 13% of the water that is in the fish. That water is mineralised, so that’s the flavour of the fish coming out. This cabinet locks the fish flavour in so you get a much more succulent fish and you don’t lose any moisture. Whether it’s summer or winter, we get the same product – and the environmental health officer loves it because it’s a closed cabinet.”
Sarah Heward, Real Food Cafe, Tyndrum, Stirling
“Datecode Genie has been the best investment bar none. We produce a lot of homemade items – mushy peas, tartare sauce, soups – which means we have a lot of food that needs labelling. It was a huge job to train staff on the information to include and then to actually write the labels clearly. Datecode Genie does all that; it must have saved us thousands of pounds as well as hundreds of hours. Also the quality of the information is better because we can put our logo on the labels and list all the ingredients, highlighting the allergens, so you are getting a better service whilst saving huge amounts of hours.”
