The chips are down nationally over the size of a scoop of fries but local outlets say their customers are getting more than their fair share.
And they reckon even if a scoop is standardised back to an even 330g, it may not be a bad thing.
Raglan Beach Store’s Jules Klenner — who’s been in the business just six months — is enthusiastic over the standard scoop idea because it will make people aware, she says, of just how much potato they’re eating.
“People are having too many carbs in their diet,” she reckons, “and it’s detrimental to health.”
All staff at her Raglan West takeaways have now cut back the store’s ample chip portions by 10-20g, gauging the $2.50 minimum by how far up the chip basket the uncooked fries come. And it’s still “ample” for two people, she says.
Down the road at Raglan Kopua Beach Store alongside the campground — perhaps better known locally as Jo’s Takeaways — the idea of a standardised chip scoop also has some appeal.
It’ an “interesting” concept, says Jo Thompson, who’s an old hand at cooking up takeaways now, after having previously worked at the Raglan West store herself. And, yes, “maybe” she’ll look at getting the new scoop.
But you’ve got to remember, she adds, this is not Auckland or Hamilton. Jo’s big on value for money and reckons that what her regulars get for double the $2.50 minimum is more like $7 worth of chips than $5.
Meanwhile Rangi Kereopa, barely two months into the business at Bow Street’s longtime chippie — where she’s taken over Rosie’s Fish n’Chips and looking to rebrand as Nannies — says “at the end of the day it (the scoop) is not going to change anything”.
Two good scoops for the $2.50 minimum to feed two people is about right, she reckons; and for elderly locals, it’s a smaller portion for just $1.
Near the bottom end of Bow Street, both Gunn Lai at the Hong Kong Kitchen and Pisey Leng at Raglan Bakery are open to the idea of a standardised scoop. Both also point out, however, that it’s not just the quantity but the quality of the chips, and the oil in which they’re cooked, that count.
The standardised scoop is the brainchild — if not the brainfood — of an organisation called The Chip Group, which promotes “best practice frying” in the New Zealand food sector. “Chips are the only food in New Zealand where you don’t know what size meal you’re going to get when you order it,” says Chip Group chairperson Glenda Gourley who’s also campaigning for chippies to have better oil, cleaner vats and less salt. Edith Symes
So what do you think? Should we adopt the idea of a “standardised scoop?”
