Chippie or chipper? Our survey results end the chip shop name debate

Do you call a chip shop a chippie or a chipper?

It’s an age old question and divides the nation.

We asked the people of Scotland for their thoughts on this and several other chip shop related questions, so we can finally put the debate to bed.

While the purpose of the survey was to determine which areas of Scotland are chipper and chippy/chippie territory (which we’ll get to), we also unearthed the Scottish majority…

In favour of chippy.

Chippie beats chipper

So, what is the regional picture then? Is there a clear dividing line?

 

You can view the full map below and click on an area to see the full results. Whilst responses were received from every local authority, some local authorities have been grouped together due to lower response rates.

Click on an area to see the full breakdown of results. For the purposes of the map, areas with a majority less than 70% were considered to be “on the fence”,

You may have noticed the very mysterious “something else” grouping on the charts – so what are these 62 readers calling a chip shop? We dug in to the data to find out.

What about the other big question we were trying to answer – do Scottish people actually eat deep fried mars bars or is it a tourist-focused gimmick?

The results were closer than you might expect. 1,749 people responded to this question and 44.3% had tried the delicacy.

What this doesn’t tell us is whether they would go back for seconds.

What we can say from the data though is that only one person responded to the question asking what their favourite chip shop order was with “battered mars bar”.

On that note – what was the nations favourite chip shop order?

It won’t come as much of a surprise that the classic fish and chips was the firm favourite. The chart below shows the most popular Scottish chip shop orders.

Some of the more unusual orders were the three people who answered with “pattie and chips” with one going on to explain “it’s an Orkney thing”.

Eleven people told us that their order preference was simply “chips” and two people informed us that their favourite was a “pineapple fritter supper”.

When it comes to favourite chip toppings vinegar was the clear winner, closely followed by ketchup and salt. On this question we have to note a small failure in our survey design (which many readers took to the freetype box to inform us of) of not allowing the selection of salt AND vinegar.

We can assure you that your responses were still counted and 51 people opted for the combination.

Slightly more unusual responses to this question were the individuals who chose “aioli”, “ranch dressing” and “salt, vinegar, curry sauce, salad cream”. Delicious.

We also asked readers to give us a few words explaining why they chose their favourite order.

So now we know what you call the shop, what you order, how it makes you feel and what you put on it…

But what about the all important question of where you buy it from?

We asked our readers to tell us their favourite chip shop. No options were provided to select from so as not to influence the vote in any way.

You can check if your favourite chip shop made the cut – or plan a Scottish chip shop crawl – using our interactive map below.

So what do you think of the results? Tell us in the comments below. Is there a data mystery you’d like the DC Thomson data team to solve? Get in touch with us on datateam@dctmedia.co.uk