Salad on the menu as chippies help fight fat

FISH and chip shops are shrinking portion sizes after warnings from a trade body that their customers are getting fat.

According to the National Federation of Fish Fryers (NFFF), which is encouraging chippies to stop serving super-sized meals, a record number are now serving “light bites” instead.

Thanks to a growing “stigma” around big portion sizes and calorie counts, salad is also being introduced to many menus as an alternative to chips.

Andrew Crook, a spokesman for the NFFF, said: “We are now encouraging our members to offer a smaller portion option to their customers. Fish and chips is one of the healthiest takeaway meals per 100g but the quantity of food we are expected to serve skews the nutritional results and in reality many customers will share a portion of chips.

“By offering a portion designed to be an individual meal, fish and chip shops can offer customers the option.”

Britons eat 382 million portions every year, spending £1.2billion, and eight in 10 eat from a fish and chip shop at least once a year. But the shops now account for just 5.6 per cent of the takeaway market, compared with 6.4 per cent in 2009. Craig Maw, who runs Kingfisher Fish & Chips in Plymouth, Devon, said: “It’s getting harder and harder to run a fish and chip shop now.”