Scoop - it's the great Kiwi chip scandal

A scoop of chips from The Fish Pot Cafe, Auckland. Photo / Herald on Sunday

It's as Kiwi as kiwifruit: walking home in winter munching on chips from a paper package.

But chips are not all created equal, and there are no rules as to how many chips you will get in a scoop.

Industry organisation The Chip Group, formed to promote "best practice frying" in New Zealand, recommends a single serving of chips should be 330g.

The Chip Group's members include Potatoes NZ, the Heart Foundation, manufacturers like Mr Chips and McCain, as well as oil, kitchenware, service and packaging companies.

Yet a trip to six Auckland fish and chip shops found several surprises in quantity and the amount being sold by weight.

Of the six shops visited, Oceanz Seafood in Northcote delivered the biggest scoop: 85 chips, weighing a healthy 480g. (Though whether deep-fried chips can ever be entirely healthy is a moot point.)

The least generous serving was from the award-winning Ponsonby Fresh Fish and Chip Company on Ponsonby Rd.

There, a single scoop for $2.50 gave 52 chips and weighed in 30g short at 300g.

Ponsonby shop owner Chun Bian said her staff used a scoop to measure their chips and tried to keep to a consistent level for each serve.

A single portion of chips at Remuera Fisheries was the same weight and cost but contained 61 chips.

Owner Bob Lovett said he was surprised to be underweight, and said the store had been using the same metal chip scoop that came with the business when he bought it 14 years ago.

"Different people will obviously weigh up the scoop differently. We've never had anybody ring up and say, 'You've not given me enough chips'."

Lovett said it was more common for people to ask for fewer chips rather than more.

Mission Bay institution The Fish Pot Cafe also weighed under with a single scoop weighing 310g. Derek Drummond has owned the business for 22 years and claimed his scoop would be well over 330g, but the cooking process made the chips lighter.

He added that despite buying their chips fresh every day, they were having trouble with supply and were receiving chips made from white potatoes instead of yellow.

"At this time of the year we just have to take what's delivered to us. For the purist the yellow chip does cook better."

All but one of the shops charged $2.50 for a scoop. The Mt Eden Village Fish shop charged $6 for their 610g serve.

However, several of the chips were dark and hard to chew. Owner Mario Dean admitted the multi-award-winning chip shop was suffering from a bad stock of pre-made chips from their supplier.

He said he was waiting for another supply, but if that wasn't good enough he would look for a different company to supply the shop.

Chef Paul Jobin said there was more to cooking a chip then just dunking it in the deep fryer. He says fish and chip shops should keep their oil clean and invest in an oil filter.

Jobin said he was a fan of the hand-cut chip; however, the majority of shops used pre-made chips that went into the deep fryer still frozen. "The chip's got to have a bit of meatiness to it; they've got to be really hot and really crisp."

Andrew Brown, executive chef at The George Hotel in Christchurch, recently opened the Burgers and Beer pub. He said chips should have standards similar to those for beef and lamb.

"There should be more of a quality level in the industry."