President’s Notes – May

Written by Andrew Crook, NFFF President

Summer is looming and it looks like the vast majority of holiday makers will be taking a staycation. This could be very good news for us as even businesses that are not in a tourist area benefit from people stopping en route. We also have the European Championships which could be something to help us engage with customers through predicting the scores, and putting some bundle deals together.  

We also have National Fish and Chip Day on the 4^th of June. As ever you don’t need to do an offer, all we ask is that you use the day to celebrate the great dish that is fish and chips, and our fantastic industry.  Even if you only post on social media, this all helps to raise the profile of the event.

The NFFF has been busy over the past few months lobbying about the proposed advertising ban for High Fat, Salt and Sugar foods. If this legislation passes without an exemption for small businesses, we will not be allowed to post pictures of HFSS food on social media.  This would really put us at a huge disadvantage to the large national and multinational chains who can afford expensive television advertising. More than ever we now need to pull together to fight issues such as this, and we need your support through membership to achieve it, the more members we have the more resources we have to work for the industry.  If every shop in the UK was an NFFF Member we would be able to afford adverts ourselves. It’s not expensive to be a member and you can pay monthly to spread the costs too!

It is this time of the year when the National Fish and Chip Awards process usually starts. Obviously, due to the changing environment and Seafish currently undertaking a review process it is impossible to plan their return just yet.  The NFFF has been in talks with Seafish about the future of the Awards and have hosted a couple of meetings with Seafish, NEODA, FASFA and AHDB Potatoes to ensure all stakeholders are involved, we are now waiting for the results of the Seafish Review.  The NFFF is 100% behind the National Fish and Chip Awards and will ensure that they continue. We have been in continued discussions with Seafish since autumn 2020 and think it is very important that they are not run on a commercial basis, they should be run by the industry for the industry.  They are a real driver for raising standards and many friendships are formed during the process, hopefully we will have more news soon.

Life is looking much more positive now, what we have all just experienced has to be the biggest challenge we will face in our careers (hopefully) but we seem to be on the right side of it and I think we are certainly a more modern and stronger industry.

Take a look inside the May digital edition of the Fish Friers Review!