Enjoying every opportunity

Matthew Faulkner is enjoying meeting more people in the industry, building his knowledge and bringing new ideas back to Cox’s at the Lighthouse in St Neots, Cambridgeshire

I’m 22 now, and I started in fish and chips when I was 16, working on the counter serving customers and wrapping orders for another company. I learned to fry when I was 18, and at 19 I moved to Hearts & Essex Foods, which owns Cox’s at the Lighthouse.

At the beginning it was just a part-time job to make a bit of money, but once I started frying, I realised how much I enjoyed it. Every year since then, I’ve become more passionate about it.

This year was the first time I entered the Drywite Young Fish Frier competition. It was challenging, but really good fun. One of the best parts has been everything around the competition itself – spending a day at KFE, visiting Larry’s Fishcakes and Colmans Fish & Chips, meeting other young friers, seeing what everyone else is doing and learning how differently people run their shops. There are so many people doing things in different ways, and I’ve  definitely picked up ideas to take back to our business.

One thing I’ve noticed is how popular spice bags have become, so that’s something we’re looking at. We’ve also been exploring different species of fish, starting with hake and, more recently, adding hoki. I was talking to other shop owners and hoki sounded like a good option. Our fish supplier could get hold of it easily, we liked the taste and it’s quite similar to cod, plus it comes skinless and boneless in ready-sized portions, so it’s really easy to work with. You just take a few pieces out and it’s ready to cook.

At the moment we’re running it as a special with chips for £8.99. Our regular cod and chips is around £13, so it gives customers a cheaper option while helping profitability as well. We gave away little samples for people to try and the feedback’s been good so far. You always get some customers who say no straight away, while others are happy to try anything. But I’m aware that any new species takes a bit of time when you first launch it.

Over the summer, Cox’s at the Lighthouse slows down a little, but our group has shops down in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, that get really busy, so I’ll go and do shifts there as well. The Airshow weekend is always massive and I love working that weekend as it’s so busy – the busier the better for me.

I enjoy working across the different shops because everyone does certain things their own way. One in particular is very different; it’s a proper old-school traditional fish and chip shop where customers have been going since they were children and are now 70 or 80 years old. I love learning how they’ve done things for years as well as chatting to all the customers and hearing their stories.

We’ve got National Fish and Chip Day coming up, and we’re planning to push deals on the hake and hoki to get more customers trying them. It’s always a really busy day, so if we can get those products in front of people, hopefully it’ll drive more sales. I’d like to enter Drywite Young Fish Frier again next year so any spare time I get will be spent improving my skills and knowledge. I’ve had my feedback and I know where I need to improve, for example, my knowledge around potatoes, but also I want to keep up my contact with other young friers. This year’s winner, James Ellams, has planned a trip to visit the Kirkella frozen at sea trawler next month, so that’s definitely one I’m looking forward to!