With Easter about a month away, fish fry season is in full swing at churches, fire halls, and VFWs in and around Pittsburgh. But while a couple hundred of the weekly dinners usually flood the region throughout Lent, some groups are taking this year off due to the rising cost of seafood and other supplies.
At the Norvelt Volunteer Fire Department in Mt. Pleasant Township, it became apparent last fall that the popular fundraiser could not happen this year. Mary Hontz, the co-treasurer of the department’s ladies auxiliary, said distributors wouldn’t guarantee the 800 pounds of cod the fire hall needs for each Friday’s dinner.
“Our biggest thing has always been the quality and our reputation,” she said. “And we just were afraid that if we told people we were going to have [the fish fry] and we got only 400 pounds of fish at five o'clock, who are we going to turn away, like at five o'clock in the afternoon? So we just didn't want to do that.”
The cancellation represents a significant blow to the fire station’s finances. The department typically counts on its fish fries to generate tens of thousands of dollars annually. It needs the money to pay for equipment and other basic expenses.
Supply shortages and high costs have sidelined other fish fries in the region, too, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and WTAE have reported. Local data indicates that dozens of fish fries are not happening this year.
Price hikes everywhere
Melaina Lewis, a spokesperson at the National Fisheries Institute, said the seafood industry faces the same constraints that have squeezed the rest of the economy since the pandemic started.
“A lot of things closed down: factories, processing facilities,” she noted. “And so you're still trying to … get folks back into working in a safe way and still bringing fish from water to table.”
Add in soaring shipping costs, and the price of cod has risen by almost 50% over the past two years, according to industry data.
Other items are more expensive, too, Hontz noted as she reviewed a list of prices she printed out in the fall.
“Tartar sauce went up $15 a jug. And ketchup went up. And there's no napkins, and there's no lids,” she remembered.
She said cooking oil doubled in price. The fire station couldn’t get enough takeout containers that were the right size. And it couldn’t find a source for the 1,200 sandwich buns it would have needed for each week’s event because its usual bakery burned down in a fire last year.
In the face of such constraints, Hontz said, the Norvelt fire department would have had to raise the price of a fish dinner from about $10 to $16. She said there was little wiggle room given that the station depends on the fundraiser to stay afloat from year to year.
“A lot of people said, ‘Oh, you can't cancel it. We’ll still come,’” she said. “Yes, they probably would’ve. Would they have come as much, and would we have been able to serve them?”
After deciding it couldn’t take that risk, the fire department launched a lottery fundraiser in hopes that it will attract as much interest as its beloved fish fries.
Community is #1
Supply constraints have also set back organizations that are still hosting fish fries.
Our Lady of the Lakes Parish in West Deer Township had to bump up the price of its fish sandwich from $8.75 to $10, and it expects to raise less money than usual.
“We couldn't [set] the normal profit margin … just because it would have raised the price too high in our opinion. And we wanted people to come back,” Our Lady of the Lakes volunteer Bill Yanicko said. He chaired the parish’s fish fry until last year.
Despite the pressure of inflation, he said customers have been especially charitable this year.
“The people are just overly, overly, overly generous saying that they can't believe this is all we're charging,” Yanicko said of the 14% price hike for sandwiches. “They're just like, ‘Well, here's $10 for a tip,’ and they're just giving an extra 10 bucks or an extra 15 bucks.”
Volunteers serve more than a thousand diners at Our Lady of the Lakes’ activity hall each week, Yanicko said. The space resembles a school cafeteria with its rows of long tables. Deep fryers bubble away nonstop in the adjoining kitchen, coating cod filets, french fries, and clam strips in a salty crisp.
A few dozen volunteers assemble sandwiches and pack containers of macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and haluski into eat-in and to-go orders.
“Organized chaos is [what] I like to call it,” said Our Lady of the Lakes fish fry coordinator Annie Catanese. “Everybody knows their job, and they’re learning it if they don't.”
“It's a big fundraiser for us,” she said of the event. “But that's not number one for us. … Number one is bringing community together.”
Customer Tracy Brandstadter agreed.
“We've been coming here for years,” she said of her family. She noted that it had been two years since Our Lady of the Lakes hosted the meals in person. “So I'm so happy that they're here now.”
