A MOBILE fish and chip shop fears it will need to reduce its hours in order to keep business afloat.

Frying Tuck Mobile Catering is one of the latest businesses to feel the impact of the rising costs of living, and owners have expressed concerns about how to keep their community takeaway service open.

The van currently moves between St Peter's Place, Shrewton, Broad Chalke, Dinton and Bishopdown every week, but has had to raise product costs to battle the current living crisis.

John and Caroline Brocksom, the husband and wife team behind Frying Tuck, told the Journal that the business "had no other choice" but to increase their prices, due to rocketing oil, gas, electric and stock costs. 

"Every time we claw some money from the business, we just don’t get much from it. We can’t pay our bills," Caroline said.

"We just can't do the job we love like we used to and it's heart breaking."

"The oil is going up a pound a week," Caroline added, "it's ridiculous. It's crippling us.

"We'll lose customers with another price increase but we'll lose the business if we don't, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place."

Caroline said that struggling businesses should be allowed to deregister from VAT charges during this time, as this alone has caused Frying Tuck to increase its prices.

Despite upping meal costs, and remaining open throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the pair fears working days and hours may need to be cut in a bid to save money.

"We've built such a rapport with our regulars, to cut a few days is just devastation for those communities", Caroline continued.

"We feel it’s the only way we could save our business. Obviously we don’t want to shrink the business, we want to grow.

"It's like we're getting punished for working and creating jobs, we shouldn’t feel like this. We shouldn't have issues like going part-time and getting hold of stock.

"Everything is against us right now."

Describing Frying Tuck as "more than just a takeaway service, part of the community", Caroline said: "Our customers would be devastated if we left, we bring everyone together, sometimes it’s the only time they get to leave the house.

"I don’t think there is anything that can be done to save this.

"We need our customers, we just hope they understand why we’re charging more and keep supporting us, or we won’t be around.

"We hate having to charge so much, it's a shame it has to be this way."

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