About

With humble beginnings over 100 years ago, Harold Lipscombe, a miner, and his wife saved all the money he earned from playing cricket to buy their first ever fish and chip shop in early 1923. Harold’s son John then took the business over in 1952, followed by his son Hugh in 1971 and Hugh is still the company chairman today. Hugh saw an opportunity to grow the business and expand to new locations and began to do so by opening his first new site in Potter Street Harlow in 1971.

TCG are now the fastest growing chain of fish and chip shops in the UK. Employing over 850 people across the business, they are a people business, passionate about the development and career prospects of staff. Solidified by their nomination and awarding of the Staff Training & Development Award at the National Fish & Chip Awards 2023, TCG values and empowers their people across the business resulting in incredible staff retention rates:

• The average tenure of shop managers is 12 years, with the longest serving manager having been there 44 years.
• 75% of managers started as team members.
• 75% of operations managers started as counter assistants, as did the MD, Head of Operations, Project Manager & CEO.
• Counter assistant churn rate of 43%, 2019/20 and 33$ 2020/21.
• Counter assistant average length of service 2.1 years.

TCG were also awarded a Franchise Launch Partnership with Pret A Manger in July 2021 in the territories of Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. Scaling for growth, they plan to open 20 new Pret A Manger locations within the next 4 years.