They chose a handful of our previous year winners from the 2013 Best Chip Shop Competition Auckland/Bay of Plenty region.

Including:

Oceanz Seafood in Silverdale.

Queen Vic Chippy in Waikato.

Greenwoods Fresh Catch in Epsom.

Oppies Takeaways in Rotorua.

It’s great to see that many of our award winning operators are still being recognised!

Check it out here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11379275

Lucky for us The Chip Group have plenty of stories to share in this issue. Including a shout out from the Editor Peter Mitchell and a full page spread celebrating a reduction in fat content between the 2011 Best Chip Shop Competition and last years 2013 Competition.

With a spotlight story on one of our Chippies Todd Wakefield, in his attempt to provide customers with crumbed fish instead of batter. (Despite the typo about him trialling battered chips!) We applaud Todd on his efforts and it’s great to see him using Cottonseed oil – which is on our approved oil list!

Finally a big shout out to NZ Sugar and their Simply brand – who took charge over the back page sharing their ‘Approved Oil’ products including; Simply Pure Rice Bran Oil & Simply Pure Cottonseed Oil. With our logo proudly making it’s presence known!

QSR FEB 2014 PDF

After feeding hungry holiday makers, this is the perfect time to reflect, up-skill and revamp the ins and outs of your business. With our brand new website layout the aim is to make things easier for you. The inclusion of our new Business Training Module – has ways to provide a better product, look after your customers and ultimately increase your profit. 

On the back of the success of the 2013 Best Chip Shop Competition it was clear that winning shops displayed the whole package. So we want to help you all improve every aspect of your business.

We recommend you re-do our Online Training – each video is aimed to be more straight forward and easier to understand.

One final change that we have added to the training modules – is an updated 2014 Training Certificate. Even if you have done the training before, we encourage you all to do it again! There is always something new to learn.

I look forward to seeing and working with more of our great operators in 2014 and wish you all the best for the year ahead!

From Kate and the team at The Chip Group.

The Chip Group Ltd

Oceanz Seafood in Silverdale scoops New Zealand’s Best Chip Shop title

Daniel and Richard Billington, owners of Oceanz Seafood in Silverdale, are officially king of the chippies, after it was named New Zealand’s Best Chip Shop. The Hibiscus Coast Highway shop beat five other finalists to scoop the title of Best Chip Shop Competition Champion 2013.

Richard Billington said that the brothers, whose parents also owned a fish and chip shop, were absolutely delighted with the accolade. “It’s taken a while for it to sink in but we’ve all got smiles from ear to ear that we have finally done it,” said Richard. “We’re looking forward to celebrating with all our crew and thanking them for the part they have played in this success.”

The competition, run by The Chip Group every second year, is a chance for chip shops to showcase the quality of their product. Oceanz Seafood Silverdale won the national title in 2009 under previous management, took the regional title in 2011 and again this year under the Billingtons’ ownership and has now scooped the top honours once more.

A key criteria for the competition was to find shops serving the most delicious chips with lower fat content. All entrants’ chips were independently lab tested and finalists and highly-commended shops had all achieved chips with a fat content of below nine per cent.

Judges said that, while all finalists’ chips were superb, Oceanz Seafood had the edge, noting: “The chips just tasted fantastic! The operators obviously used light, clean oil and drained the chips well, so it didn’t dominate the flavour.”

Judges were also impressed that the chips were not salted, with a salt sachet provided instead to provide customers with a choice, and that the 330g portion size was stated on the menu board. Entrants were also judged on chip taste, quality, shop cleanliness and customer service and many customers provided testimonials about the great quality and taste and the friendly efficient staff. Some said that they go the extra distance to buy their fish and chips at the shop.

Cooking great chips is in Daniel and Richard’s genes. They worked in their parents’ fish and chip shop through their teens and pursued other careers before returning to the industry – they took over the Silverdale shop three years ago. Richard said that high quality product and exceptional care of oil were vital to their great product.

“Every chip is different and every batch of chips is different, and you have to be aware of that and adjust your cooking methods accordingly,” he said. “Adhering to The Chip Group industry standards is really important.

Giving a very good shake and bang gives much crisper, dryer chips. When they hear the banging our customers joke that we are panel beating our chips, but it makes all the difference to the end product.” The shop also serves its chips up in cardboard trays, rather than wrapping them, which makes them easier to eat as well as reducing condensation and keeping the chips crisper.

Judith Morley-John, Food Industry Nutritionist for the Heart Foundation, welcomed the fact that all competition participants were required to have undergone and have a current certificate for The Chip Group’s free online industry training.

“The impact of training was reflected in the lower chip fat content for the forty eight Highly Commended shops (7.8%) compared with 9.9% for the 18 regional finalists winners in the previous competition,” said Ms Morley-John.

Food educator and Chip Group Chair Glenda Gourley said that the competition was an excellent way to further raise awareness in the catering industry that, by following the industry standards you can achieve the most delicious chips with the lowest possible fat content.

“The reduction in fat content this time round is awesome,” said Glenda. “Kiwis love hot chips and this gives customers confidence that the operators displaying a current Chip Group certificate really know what they are doing. The skill of the operator has a huge impact on the chip.”

The other five regional finalists were:

• Auckland wide: Greenwoods Fresh Catch, Epsom

• Waikato – Bay of Plenty: Hawkes Bay, Queen Vic Chippy, Cambridge

• Manawatu – Wellington: Fish King Takeaways, Feilding

• Nelson – Christchurch: Victory Square Fish and Chips, Nelson

• Timaru – Southland: The Naked Chip, Waimate

For further details of The Chip Group’s free online training course on how to produce tasty hot chips with a lower fat content please visit www.chipgroup.co.nz.

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Kate Underwood Training and Education Manager, The Chip Group 022 066 8711 or [email protected] or Dan Walraven Ideas Shop 027 433 6373 or [email protected]

From Waimate right up to the North Shore – each shop celebrated their hard-work and were presented awards from The Chip Group team.

We have had plenty of positive media around this years competition – particularly with the addition of the Highly Commended Awards. These are being distributed gradually throughout the country, delivered where possible or sent by post – so please be patient and we will get these to you as soon as we can. When you do receive your awards we would love it if you could take a photo of yourselves, with your award and your shop and email it through to: [email protected]! And I shall looking forward to seeing your smiling faces!

Here is a wee snippet of the images and celebrations from our Regional Winners last week…Just under a week to go now before we find out the results for our GRAND NATIONAL WINNER! Watch this space.

Photo’s in the order as below…

Northland-Northshore: Oceanz Seafood Silverdale

Auckland-wide: Greenwoods Fresh Catch, Epsom

Waikato-BOP-Hawkes Bay: Queen Vic Chippy, Cambridge

Manawatu-Taranaki-Wellington: Fish King Takeaways, Fielding

Timaru-Southland Region: The Naked Chip, Waimate

Nelson-Christchurch Region: Victory Square Fish and Chips, Nelson (Image for these guys coming soon!)

We will also be sharing plenty of photo’s of our Highly Commended Awards as they come through!

The wait is over!!!

We can finally share who won our SIX REGIONAL  and the 47 HIGHLY COMMENDED AWARDS!

You can see the full list HERE…

Kate gives you an update on the winners on this short video…

THE GRAND NATIONAL WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON 25 SEPTEMBER!

( The Regional Winners will have to wait a little longer to find out who takes out the top honour!!)

Chairperson Glenda Gourley and Kate Underwood, Training and Education Manager from The Chip Group visited Michael in Rotorua to present him with this prestigious award. The award is to celebrate that Michael has trained and inspired hundreds of operators throughout NZ to follow his example and adopt the Industry Standards for best practice frying.

“Michael gives his time enthusiastically”, says Kate. “He is a true inspiration to the industry.” Through his involvement with The Chip Group he has been able to inspire operators like himself to remove a huge amount of fat from the NZ food supply.

In Matamata alone he was able to help motivate 10 operators to remove a staggering 1711kg of fat from the Matamata food supply – find out more here. This proves categorically that if a lot of individual operators make small changes to their frying techniques then cumulative affect can have a big impact on the food supply.

This is the first time The Chip Group has made any award such as this, and is reflective of his unique contribution to better the industry.

On behalf of The Chip Group we would like to congratulate Michael and his family and staff who allow Michael to get away and share his time helping others better their businesses.

Pictured is Kate Underwood, presenting Michael Huang with his prestigious 2013 Chip Champion Award.

Hold tight chippies we are very, very close to announcing the Regional Winners of this years 2013 Best Chip Shop Competition…