Shap, Crackle & Pop

Well, where to start? As we said in our presentation, we didn’t buy a fish and chip shop to enter the awards, but we are so glad that we did. We have owned Shap Chippy for nearly 2 years now and what a crazy 2 years it has been. Our journey through the awards started with the application, then mystery shops which took us to Top 60 and we were blown away, not expecting to make it that far, we were buzzing! The team were super energised and engaged to see how far we could actually make it.

Waiting for Mystery shoppers to come, at the beginning, made the team quite nervous, however we reminded them that we do what, we do for the customers, we should produce excellent fish and chips every single time with the best customer

Although shut at time of publication, we wanted to document their amazing journey through the Seafish National Fish & Chip Awards.

service to boot. Then we made it to Top 20, and that’s when our amazing team started to get competitive and I’ll be honest, its actually since then we have the most engaged and passionate team, either of us have ever worked with. We have always allowed the team to give their input and share their ideas, and to then implement those ideas and push them to make Shap Chippy the best it can be.

Then we made Top 10, after the audit ‘battle of the shops’ round, which meant Ashley was off to Norway. Ashley couldn’t believe how awe inspiring this trip was. To not only be spending time with other business at the top of their game, but to be enjoying the best seafood in a beautiful country was truly a once in a life time experience, one he will always treasure. Also, to see how these fishermen live and work, and the efforts they put in to get the best products into our Chippies really cemented our belief that Cod and Haddock should be treated with the up most respect in honour of their hard work.

It was soon time to head to London to deliver our presentation and attend the awards, which let me tell you came around VERY quickly! It was a nerve-racking couple of days, but once the presentation was delivered and we walked out that room, we knew we have done everything we could and we had to just wait and see.

We invited our management team and the previous owners to join us at the awards ceremony, where we took home the Marketing Innovation Award 2020 and runner up Best fish and Chip Shop 2020, which believe me we were not expecting at all! To be in this industry for such a short amount of time and to walk away 2nd place to the amazing Cod Scallops is a huge achievement.

Since the awards, again I’ll be honest we felt like we won, and before you scoff, I know we didn’t. We have been riding high as a team and as owners. From Radio interviews, Magazine and Newspaper features, they have not only covered the win but also promoted Shap Chippy, and Ashley have been on BBC radio repeatedly promoting the shop and Fish & Chips which is great. The team morale is still at an all time high, and they are all keen to compete again in the future.

What have we learned from this experience? That there is always something to learn, to be better at, to push for and to engage the team to achieve. We are so proud of how far we and the team have come, and this year we have some amazing PR planned across 2020 (virus interrupted), so you can be sure you will see Shap Chippy around for a long time to come.