‘Sky high’ costs leads to struggle for Oldham chippies

Savvas Eleftheriou and George Gabciatsou co-own Levers Fish and Chip shop at Tommyfield Market.

Savvas said: “Everything’s gone sky – anything you mentioned has doubled in price.”

Savvas Eleftheriou and George Gabciatsou in Levers Fish & Chips (Image: Jack Fifield, Newsquest)

“We’ll carry on until we can, if we can’t we’ll just give up. But I think we’ll survive.”

Savvas is hoping for help from the government but is worried about the situation.

He added: “It’s a worry for everybody, it’s got to stop somewhere, it can’t keep going like this.

“Not just us, everyone – we’re all in the same boat, we’re all in this together – we can’t get cheap electricity or gas, there isn’t any.”

While the shop’s energy contract is locked in until November, prices of supplies like oil and fish have already doubled – but Levers' prices have not doubled, meaning they are having to absorb some of the rise.

Savvas said: “We used to get the fish for £115 for 40lbs cases, now it’s £190.

“Oil, we used to get for £23 for 20 litres, now it’s £48.

“It’s got to come down sometime. People take advantage of a crisis, I don’t know.”

Levers has already had to put its prices up, and Savvas has said they will be forced to increase them again.

He said: “No doubt we’ll put them up again, but I don’t know when, and I don’t know how much.”

Levers is not the only chip shop to have to raise prices.

Across the country, the average cost of fish and chips is set to surpass £10 this year.

Back in March, Hill’s Fish and Chips, which is located in Middleton but loved by many Oldhamers, had to raise its prices.

At the time, the shop explained that rising energy costs had forced them to raise prices.

In Royton, The White Hart pub has been forced to stop serving food as rising energy costs make it difficult to continue.

Unlike home energy bills, business energy bills do not have a price cap – meaning suppliers can increase their rates by as much as they want.