Since its inception in 2003, Deep Blue Restaurants has set about changing the face of the fish and chip shop sect or with its vibrant branding, an insistence on buying only the highest quality raw materials, and a determination to offer customers consistently high standards. To achieve this once can be difficult enough, but to replicate it 25 times as Deep Blue has done so successfully is another matter, especially when your sites range from Devon to Cambridgeshire. But it all comes down to getting the basics right from the outset.

“When we set the business up we effectively experimented for the first couple of years, buying one or two shops here and there and just seeing how we could make the model work, what the Deep Blue brand was all about and the sorts of things that were important to us,” explains chief executive James Low. At the top of the list of priorities was quality and to ensure it remained there, Deep Blue developed what internally it calls its ‘brand standards’. Everything Deep Blue carries out conforms to the criteria set out in these standards, whether it’s how long products are left in the hot box before they are thrown away, details about the uniforms its staff has to wear, or how to greet customers when they walk through the door. The chain has even gone to the lengths of employing not simply area managers, but brand standard managers who ensure these principles are implemented and maintained.

And the way in which James has achieved this is by finding innovative, new products which keep his customers coming back.“What interests me the most, and did when I started up, was that if you look at the competition that has come into the market in the last 30 years it’s vast, but fish and chips are still up there at the top. It’s part of our culture and it’s here to stay,” says James. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking to improve the products available as long as they fit within that sphere of what a fish and chip shop should offer.”

Always keen to move forward, Deep Blue has signed a deal with Peter’s Food Service which sees its extensive range of pies, sausage rolls, saveloys and slices go on sale in all 25 Deep Blue stores. It’s a deal that equates to around 150,000 pastry products a year.