Sustainable fish and chips

With almost two thirds (63%) of British adults ranking fish and chips as their go-to fish dish, according to our consumer survey in summer 2025, and three quarters (75%) saying they make a point of buying sustainable fish, it’s never been more important to know where to find MSC certified fish and chips.

That’s where our new list of 17 MSC certified sustainable chippies, from the north east of Scotland to very south west of England, is your invaluable companion as you seek out a box full of piping hot, crisp-on-the-outside, flaky-on-the-inside, fish and chips with the oh-so reassuring blue ecolabel, plus your own favourite accompaniments. Hear from some of the shop owners as to what sustainability means to them and their businesses below. 

The Real Food Café

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that many of those on the list have been frying for decades and plan to do so for many years to come. These chippies are no fry-by-nights.

They’re in it for the long term and, while valuing the heritage of their chosen speciality, are as, if not more, focused on the future.

Like Sarah Heward at The Real Food Café in the small village of Tyndrum in the Scottish Highlands.

“This business was never  get rich quick scheme,” insists Sarah, whose business also champions Scottish beef, pays its staff the Real Living Wage and spearheads regular community litter picks.

“It was about building something authentic that had community at its heart and respect for the environment. Being MSC certified is just absolutely in keeping with our core values.” 

While The Real Food Café, built 20 years ago on the site of a derelict Little Chef, might not have made Sarah a millionaire overnight, it is certainly a magnet for coachloads of American tourists as well as mountain bikers and walkers, who, between them, devour more than 52,000 portions of MSC certified haddock and chips a year.

It’s no coincidence she says that people who want to explore some of Scotland’s most beautiful countryside, just north of Loch Lomond, also care about where their food comes from and the impact it has on the natural world.

“It’s one thing for restaurants to say they’re serving sustainable haddock, but MSC certification is proof that this is a premium product from sustainable stocks and there’s definitely customer recognition and awareness of the MSC’s blue ecolabel.”

Whisper it quietly, but Sarah, whose dream had been to open an artisan bakery and coffee shop, only changed her focus to fish and chips on the insistence of the bank lending her the money for the project  back in 2005.

Now, with two decades’ experience and 12 years of MSC certification under her belt, Sarah is keenly aware of her role in ensuring the next generation gets to enjoy fish and chips too.

“We are all using the same resources and need quality fish so we should invest in the future to ensure we can keep our businesses running.”

Millers

Two hundred and seventy miles south, fish and chip lovers will find a chippy with both a proud heritage and an up-to-the-minute grasp of current food trends.

Millers, now run by father and son, David and Nick, has been feeding the people of Haxby since grandfather Jim started frying there back in the 1960s. Like The Real Food Café, haddock is the fish of choice in these parts, accompanied by ‘Yorkshire caviar’, as David calls mushy peas, and homemade tartare sauce. 

Conscious of changing tastes amongst younger customers, Nick, who’s been banging the drum for sustainability since teaming up with his Dad in 2016, has also introduced innovative new dishes to the Millers menu to keep the business future-focused. David admits his customers have taken to these with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“Our shop at Haxby is traditional – haddock and beef dripping chips. We’ve tried alternatives to haddock and cod, like pollock, saithe and hake, but while I’m all for trying it, changing the taste of the nation is a hard job!”

Younger customers in particular though are responding to the new dishes at their two stalls in the market at York. These include St Nick’s Frites, poutine, and their Irish Spice Bag, made with chip shop chips, onions, peppers and curry sauce, which David says has brought in an extra £3,000 of business a week and encouraged the under-35s to try MSC certified haddock too.

David is a strong advocate for catching potential customers when they’re young and sharing the sustainability message with them.

The Bay

Back in Scotland, in the seaside town of Stonehaven, north of Aberdeen, Calum Richardson, owner of 20-year-old The Bay, believes wholeheartedly in sharing provenance with his customers, fixing an MSC blue ecolabel on each box of fish and chips as they’re filled to the brim, and highlighting on the menu the name of the individual boat that caught the haddock.

Calum is convinced it’s worked as an effective marketing as well as educational tool: “Folks get excited by it, especially the non-regulars. It’s always a talking point when we put the sticker on the box and communicating that story within hospitality and engaging the customer is halfway to them enjoying the product. It also makes them know that we care.”

As a child, Calum definitely didn’t care for fish, remembering as he does, his grandmother’s bony fish suppers which felt like punishment rather than pleasure. 

Roll forward to teenage Calum, exhausted and starving after a day raking a farmer’s field. He picks up the story: “On the way home, the farmer said he’d get me something for dinner, pulled into a chippy and presented me with a parcel. I opened up this steaming fish and chips, bit into it and I loved it.”

The fish and chips experience is all about a time and a place, says Calum.

Harbour Lights

Sharing this deep understanding of the impact of time and place on the enjoyment of fish and chips, is just one of the things Pete Fraser, owner of Falmouth’s Harbour Lights, has in common with Calum. The pair both spent years at sea too – Pete in the Royal Navy, Calum the Merchant Navy.

“For me, the strongest memory is of Mum taking us for fish and chips on the first day of the summer holidays, so it’s forever been food that makes me happy,” Pete remembers fondly.

Like David Miller, Pete does though slightly despair of the conservative tastes of the British consumer, wishing they’d be braver about trying different species of fish. He’d also like to have the courage to rid his shop of the UK’s favourite condiment, vinegar, or as he prefers to call it – ‘the devil’s liquid’. Perhaps uniquely, Pete prefers his fortnightly portion of fish and chips with pepper, not salt, and dipped in mushy peas and curry sauce.

As is common across the south of England, the vast majority of Pete’s customers opt for cod,  although his personal favourite is Cornish MSC hake, landed pretty much on his doorstep. While still a less popular cousin to customer favourites cod and haddock, sales of hake have surged in recent years.

As well as helping him reach out to a younger, environmentally-engaged audience, especially Falmouth’s university students, he’s convinced MSC certification has boosted business in another significant way.

“Apart from sending a really good message to my customers and helping me sleep at night, being MSC certified has helped attract the best staff too as it helps them know their employer gives a damn,” says Pete.

If you care a fish’s fin about where your fish supper comes from and how it’s been caught, find chippies like these and more in our sustainable chippies list.