Tackling obesity will be small fry
COMPANY’S BITE-SIZE IDEA COULD WIDEN THE NET OF CHIP SHOP CUSTOMERS
A NORTH East company is attempting to tackle the country’s obesity crisis with an initiative to market fish-andchips as a healthier option.
Henry Colbeck – which supplies fishand-chip shops with food, cleaning products, and packaging – has produced Lite-Bite boxes, which allow takeaways to offer a smaller sized portion of food to its customers.
The initiative also includes information to promote the nutritional benefits of fish-and-chips, such as mushy peas counting as one of people’s recommended five-a-day vegetables.
The company came up with the idea after it was approached by Newcastle University’s food science department, which was looking at a way to reduce obesity levels in the UK.
Jackie Pearson, head of marketing at Henry Colbeck, said: “We supply 2,500 fish shops and one of the issues we have is the size of portions they give away. Fish-and-chip shops are very successful at what they do, so they don’t want us to say they are doing something wrong.
“We thought: ‘We need to tackle this a different way.’ So, we looked at offering a different portion size to customers.”
The introduction of the Lite-Bite boxes allows chip shops to offer meals that come close to 600 calories, which fits within Government nutritional guidelines for meal sizes.
A meal consisting of a 5oz fish and 5oz of chips – fried in vegetable oil – is 654 calories.
The Government also recommends eating two portions of fish per week as part of a healthy diet. Fish from a fishand-chip shop is included in this recommendation, although the NHS warns that fried and battered fish contains a higher fat content.
As well as offering a healthier alternative to the large portions traditionally offered by the local chippy, the boxes are being used to attracted new customers who are looking for a lighter lunch.
Henry Colbeck argues that the LiteBite portion size makes chip shops a more attractive lunch choice for its customers, and is healthier than the processed food used in other fast food restaurants. Since Henry Colbeck was contacted by Newcastle University, the Lite-Bite boxes have become popular with a number of takeaways and are now used in 253 shops. In 2017 these shops bought a total of 552,300
boxes.