‘Cheap as Chips’ No Longer True in U.K. as Prices Soar for a Favorite Meal

HARTLEPOOL, England — When it opened in 2020, business was booming at Chunks, a store serving dozens of portions each day of Britain’s best known takeout meal: battered and deep-fried cod with fries, or chips as they are known here.

But even before the war in Ukraine further pushed up the shop’s bills for energy, fish and cooking oil, inflation had already forced the owners, Sayward and Michael Lewis, to raise their prices twice.

Now, with another spike in prices driving away customers, Chunks is on the brink of failing.

“We might not be able to make it to the end of the month,” said Ms. Lewis, sitting in the back of the store in Hartlepool, a port town in northeastern England where her husband, Michael, was raised.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/world/europe/uk-fish-chips-inflation.html