Fish and chips as you've never seen them before!

No, this isn’t down to Heston Blumenthal!

According to research by the company, vanilla is still the UK’s No.1 favourite flavour with 9 out of ten Brits opting for the traditional taste. It’s hoped that the unusual Fish and Chips creation will raise awareness of the bountiful choices available in the market. The  ice cream will be sampled around the UK this week and if it catches will be rolled out this summer at selected venues.

An homage to our favourite national dish, the ice cream will be ‘a taste of the British seaside in a lick’. The unique recipe has been specially created to include Creamed Cod Fillet ice cream in Vanilla & Pepper Batter. Accompanied by Potato Ice Cream Chips made with Maris Piper potatoes and served with Salt & Vinegar seasoning & Lemon Wedges, on a bed of newspaper.

In the UK, ice cream sales are worth £1.3 billion with the top (non vanilla) flavours being in order of preference – Chocolate, Strawberry and Caramel. Londoners spend the most on ice cream whilst those in the North East spend the least. In fact, we eat enough ice cream as a nation to fill over 5,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools each year and that’s before National Ice Cream Week has kicked in (starts today Tuesday 1st June 2010.)

Fish & Chips Ice Cream will join the portfolio of other distinctive flavours produced by Fredericks which include Lyle’s Golden Syrup Sponge, Cadbury Crunchie Blast, Vimto and Barratt Refreshers. Last year the company won Best Ice Cream in the World for its Antonio Federici Pistacchio Gelato (International Ice Cream Consortium Awards 2009/10).

National Ice Cream Week is a celebration of the taste of the British summer. To further enhance the celebrations, the Best of British beaches will be honoured in the first Cadbury Flake 99 Best Beach Awards.  From Blackpool to Bournemouth and Southport to Southwold, the British public has been voting for their favourite seaside, with the winning beach announced next week.

Jenny Bostock, Consumer Marketing Manager for Fredericks Dairies comments: “Britain has long been a nation of ice cream lovers and with a rise in UK holiday bookings this year, we think that National Ice Cream Week is the perfect way to kick off the summer holiday season. The unique Fish & Chip flavour may sound like a surprising combination, but it tastes delicious and will certainly raise a smile with our customers.”

For more information, please visit www.fredericksdairies.com

To celebrate National Ice Cream Week, here are some interesting facts you might not know about ice cream:

• In the last 12 months Fredericks produced 17million kg’s of ice cream mix, 53million ice cream cones, 16million Cadbury Flake 99 cones
• It takes an average of 50 licks to finish off a single scoop ice cream cone
• The first evidence of ice cream comes from China during the Tang period. King Shang used to have a frozen dish made for him out of buffalo milk, flour and camphor
• Ice cream first arrived in Europe in Italy in the 13th Century
• Ice cream sundaes are so called because they used to be sold on a Sunday as a way of getting around a law which made it illegal to sell flavored ice cream on the Sabbath
• The ice cream cone was first mentioned in Mrs Marshall’s Cookery Book in 1888
• Brits eat an average of 9 litres each of ice cream every year
• Whenever ice cream sales rise, so do shark attacks!
• Over £100 million worth of ice cream is sold from UK ice cream vans every year
• As a teenager, Barack Obama used to work in an ice cream shop
• Surveys have shown that men are more likely to choose ice cream as a dessert than women

Some more ice cream facts:

• New flavour devised to celebrate National Ice Cream Week
• UK ice cream sales top £1.3 Billion!
• Brits will eat enough ice cream this summer to fill 5,500 Olympic swimming pools

So get your Fish and Licks!

Hoorah for Fish and Chips!

P.S. Another random fact for you. Lady Gaga had Fish and Chips before meeting the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance! The crazy pop diva quoted: “Nothin like a whiskey, fish and chips in the UK to prepare for the Queen”

How did this happen?

Well John Burns from Nottingham had been ignoring a lump near his eye for quite a while. It was only when in a chip shop that a doctor, passing through for his dinner, spotted the lump. He urged Mr Burns to get this looked at as soon as possible. And that was what he did with the result being that a golf ball sized tumour was removed!

While this tumour wasn’t fatal it could have caused sight problems. So there’s a good reason to eat Fish and Chips!

Read the full story and adjoining video here

Walkers Fish and Chips crisps wallpaper

Off i went to the Walkers website to find out more. It’s good.. some fun Flashy interactive goodness with the options to read more facts, download wallpapers, ringtones, screensavers and videos. You also get the option to vote for your favourite.

I was straight into the Fish and Chips section … on which there’s a video from none other than the master food technician himself, Heston Blumenthal. So from Big Chef meets Little Chef to Walkers Crisps, he is working hard!

No campaign would be complete without the obligatory fan page on Facebook. You can join all the individual flavour fan pages. Here’s the link to the Fish and Chips page. Promptly joined.

Now.. i haven’t tried this new flavour yet but i’m hoping it’s going to be good. Although the thought of fish flavour in crisps is going to be a bit strange. There are some other cool flavours available: Builders Breakfast, Cajun Squirrel (RSPCA?), Chilli and Chocolate (!!), Crispy Duck and Hoisin and Onion Bhaji.

If you tried any flavours above why not add a comment or two.

Enjoy,

Chipston

UPDATE: – 9th Feb 09 – Managed to finally get a packet of Fish and Chips flavoured Walkers and my verdict is: Good. Although, today i tried the Builder’s Breakfast and i must say they are much better! Has Willy Wonka been employed by Walkers?!!