Chorley chip shop served unidentifiable fish
8:00am Sunday 7th October 2012 in News
The county’s chip shops know their cod from their haddock but one in Chorley was serving a fish that experts could not identify, a new trading standards survey has shown.
County council experts checked on 30 chippies across Lancashire and 24 came up with a clean bill of health and value for money.
All four tested in Ribble Valley borough got top marks but the position in Chorley was less cut and dried.
Of the eight tested in the area only six met the official standards with one chippie mixing up cod and haddock.
And another was “found to have served a species which wasn’t on the menu and couldn’t be recognised” despite strenuous efforts by county council analysts.
Now that fish friers is being further investigated with a view to further action and possible prosecution, a Lancashire county spokesman revealed.
Four other chips shops tested in South Ribble Preston, Lancaster, Fylde and Wyre also mixed up cod and haddock.
The county council trading standards department carried out the survey after reports from elsewhere in the UK raised fears that many shops could be passing off cheaper white fish such as panga and river cobbler for the more expensive favourites cod and haddock. The tests showed this practice is not widespread in Lancashire with just the one shop in Chorley found to have served a species which wasn’t on the menu and couldn’t be recognised.
Of the remainder, 24 chippies were given a completely clean bill of health, but five have been warned to tighten stock controls after mixing up orders for cod and haddock.
County deputy leader Albert Atkinson said: “This is a very positive result for the fish and chip trade in Lancashire showing that people can continue to buy with confidence.
“The shops which mixed up cod and haddock have received a warning, but our investigations found they were not being deliberately dishonest as, both being premium fish, there’s no economic advantage in substituting one for the other.”
Trading Standards will repeat the sampling exercise in future to check whether stock control has improved.
