Takeaways have seen rising costs as the price of a humble portion of fish and chips is soaring, with concerns within the industry that some local chippers could be pushed out of business.

Costs are rising across the board, with fish and chip shop owners increasingly torn between taking the full hit and putting their businesses in danger, or raising prices at the risk of losing customers.

The picture is the same in Britain, where the National Federation of Fish Fryers has said businesses are under extreme pressure, and that many may not survive. Antonio Raso, of the Embassy Grill in Ballsbridge, Dublin, said: "Everything has gone up in price. That's just the way it is. But there is only so much that we can increase the price by to reflect this.

"We have to keep taking the hits from now on, because there is a threshold to what people will pay for a bag of chips in Ireland. It's like a loaf of bread - everyone knows what the cost should be."

Mr Raso also said that he had already increased the price of a bag of chips from €3.20 last year, to €3.50 now, although he felt that €3.90 would better reflect the costs he is paying.

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Frying oil has doubled in price, fish has gone up by 60 to 80% on last year's prices, and chips, which have to be bought from the UK, have also shot up in cost.

His electricity bill has skyrocketed and his gas unit charge has quadrupled. Mr Raso said he had been given many reasons for the increases from his suppliers, including the price of fuel for transport, Covid, Brexit, lower fish quotas and, most recently, the invasion of Ukraine.

"There is only so much we can charge to give the customer value for money, so it is extremely difficult," he said.

"And this does not just apply to us. This affects everybody in the industry, and every person in every business across the country, and we are just trying to do our best and hoping the customer will understand. I don't want to be called a rip-off or be accused of overcharging." He added: "There has to be a cut-off point for these price rises from suppliers, or else customers will cut back and maybe only have fish and chips once a month, instead of once a week. Then everyone loses out."

Mr Raso said another challenge for the sector at the moment is a difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, as has been seen across the hospitality industry.

In Galway, the seafood house and fish and chip bar McDonagh's has been in business since 1902, but Colm McDonagh, from the family-run chipper, said the pressure is on with the rising costs.

"I would say our costs overall have gone up by between 20% and 25%. My gas charges have gone up to four times as much. Frying oil is up and fish prices are up.

"We had to put our prices up in October and we haven't put them up since, but we are going to have to do so in the next week or two."

He said a bag of chips used to cost €3.20 and is now €3.50. That price will not go up "because I don't know if people have the money", he said.

"I have noticed that for certain products, if you put the prices up, people don't go for them. And I am afraid if I do put prices up to reflect the costs, I am going to have less customers. We may be making less but we are trying to pass price rises on as little as possible," he added.

Mr McDonagh said he had also been given varying reasons for the cost increases, fish quotas being one and Brexit being another, due to higher overheads on fishing boats. An added difficulty for the chip shop has been a difficulty in sourcing packaging products, due to delays from Covid lockdowns.

"It's been a perfect storm, with a lot of things happening at the same time. Hopefully things will improve. We are coming into the summer, which is normally a busy time for us," said Mr McDonagh.

He added: "Hopefully we will be okay. We have been here for a good while, but definitely businesses are suffering. We just have to keep going."

Image: Paul Murphy at Leo Burdocks fish and chip shop in Christchurch. Fran Veale