Maybe I was spoilt in Erdington, but whenever I fancied a portion of chips I would get a reasonable size portion, and I know the price of potatoes has gone up but that is beside the issue of everywhere else in the country giving you less than a small baked potatoes worth of chips for a standard portion. I know the cost of potatoes has increased and they tend to fluctuate a lot, but this again should not be the issue as surely you could just adjust the price of the portion to a rate that still maintains a suitable portion and gets a profit without compromising on the value of the portion by giving a measly unsatisfying puny bunch of chips.
Maybe it comes from where people would complain that they have “stale” or overcooked chips, I personally would rather have a few extra bad ones in my portion than having a tiny portion that I can hold in one hand and it be about that size, not the usual meal providing size I have grown accustom to. I know this issue spreads far and wide and beyond the fast food network into everyday things like chocolate bars decreasing in size to save money rather than just being honest and putting up the prices, it seems sneeky and underhand to chop down the size of portions and pretend you’re getting the same value when you’ve clearly lost out.
Another possibility is that they have decided to match ranks with other fast food joints such as mcDonalds and burger king where you get the same puny portion of fries (ever since super sized portions were declared illegal) and this is really to encourage you to purchase a burger and other things on the side to complete your meal rather than having just the portion of chips/fries as an entity on thier own as a treat, it would make sense if they are trying to sell more fish, as the british fish and chip culture rather than a portion of chips on its own, but then meal deals which include this you get an even more pathetic size of chips, literally in the lowesmoor fish bar in worcester (I had to name and shame purely for the stingyness) they have a deal where you could get 2 mini sausages and chips for £1.50 (it may have even been £2) but the ammount of chips you recieve with the sausages was less than the two sausages, so it was 80% sausage 20% chips, literally about 7 chips wrapped up with the sausages, I nearly left without paying saying no, the lady behind the counter insisted that this was the ammount they were told to serve, she had scooped half a scoop of chips onto the paper, looked and thought this was too much and taken half of them away again leaving this pathetic nothingness of a portion, I couldn’t believe it, hardly a filling lunch, left me unsatisfied and needless to say I never went there again and I would advise that you avoid the place too.
All I want is to be able to buy a decent portion of chips, Im even happy to pay extra to get a portion rather than a handful, and if you’re doing specials which make out you’re getting a saving don’t make a bigger profit on that than if I bought the two sausages and a portion of chips seperate, because it was literally saving about 20p off the cost of a portion of chips and the two sausages seperate but taking about 80p worth of chips away from the portion size.
I’ve tried a couple of other places and I just keep getting let down with tiny portions and ripoff meal deals that are worse than if I got the items seperate, its disheartening and puts me off trying, so I find myself having to purchase a pack of McCain chips or something close, but these I have to cook myself rather than having the convenience of the local chip shop, at least I can get a reasonable portion though without the hassle.