Gone are the days of a cheap, delicious and easy fish and chip meal, as rising costs finally take a bite out of a childhood classic.
At least, that’s if a series of photos of the menu board at a Sydney takeaway institution, and the frenzy they have caused, are anything to go by.
The three photos – taken five years, 12 months, and two months ago – show the menu board at Great North Seafood, a family-run business in the inner west Sydney suburb of Five Dock.
It is a classic fish and chip shop menu that has remained the same for five years, still offering the favourites: seafood cooked however you please, calamari, prawns, potato chips and scallops, burgers, even Chiko rolls.
What has changed, however, is the price of the food, rising by about 40 per cent across the board, on average, in the past five years – some individual items prices have risen upwards of 60 per cent.
In the last 12 months, alone, prices have risen by almost 20 per cent.
The price increase on a number of items caused a particular stir: burgers (which are 43 per cent more expensive than they were five years ago), the now-$90 ‘Family Pack’ (up from $68), and the ever-rising cost of chips.
The prices made many commenters on the viral Reddit thread reminisce about cheaper times.
“Never thought I’d be happy to have been alive when it was possible to get $1 worth of chips,” one person wrote.
“What a fond memory of ancient times.”
“Remember when you could get enough chips to feed the family for (three) bucks?” another wrote.
One person declared the prices for seafood were “bloody un-Australian”, but a number of people defended the prices considering the time between pictures and the much bigger economic picture.
“Have you considered that this place is now paying more rent, more electricity, more gas, more for every food product and more for everything in between,” a defender wrote.
“Should they just keep their prices the same just so you can eat some junk food for as cheaply as you THINK it costs them to make it?!”
Leang Eng, who took ownership of Great North Seafood last year after working at the small business for three years, said putting up prices was a “really hard” decision to make.
“It’s our first year, and it’s just a bit tricky for us, especially with the prices of everything,” Ms Eng told news.com.au.
“It’s just so hard for us, especially when we just started – you can’t put the price up right away. Not if you have to put 50 cents or 60 cents on top (or prices).”
But, she said, because the price of “everything” – from the food, to electricity, to rent, even workers’ wages – has increased, she had make changes.
“Some of the fish, the fillets, all the stuff is going up. We’ve had to put prices up at least 10 or 20 per cent more, on top (of previous increases).”
Industry data shows the price of seafood has been rising since 2018, after a slight decline following the pandemic, in part because rising demand for the produce on our plates.
IBISWorld data shows domestic prices of fish and seafood have risen by at least 4.4 per cent this year. It expects the prices will increase by another 2.7 per cent in the year to 2024.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment has predicted the seafood industry will continue to rebound from a pandemic slump, driven significantly by strong growth in the cost of salmon, oysters, and prawns.
A department report says salmon prices rose by 37 per cent during 2021-2022, peaking at $16.35 per kilogram.
In 2017, data from the World Bank showed that if the average global benchmark of seafood prices was $100, a basket of Australian seafood would cost $163 – a US basket would cost $147.
And with the domestic and international demand for high-quality Australian seafood increasing, prices have only got worse.
But it’s not the seafood that hurts the most, Ms Eng said, the cost of chips is “hitting hard” for the business.
“We used to get a box of chips for $30, now it’s $60 or $50 a box,” she said.
It seems the hangover from a spud shortage earlier this year, which saw Aussies who wanted a chip fix slapped with buying limits and higher costs.
Across the ditch in New Zealand, the cost of the humble spud rose 48 per cent in the year to July, with local chip shops telling Stuff that supplier costs were up 10 per cent.
Ms Eng said despite the rising costs hitting hard, the shop still had plenty of customers – but they were getting less happy with each price rise.
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“Customers come in and say: ‘It’s up again?! How many times do you need to put prices up?’,” she said.
“But they never know how hard we try not to put the price up, but we have to.”
Continue the conversation – georgina.noack@news.com.au
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