It’s a source of pride for all of us here at The Ashvale that we have now been serving the people of the North East for over thirty years. When John Low Snr, Chairman, opened our main branch in Aberdeen’s Great Western Road in 1985 its concept was very straightforward – buy the very best of produce and deliver the perfect fish supper. Thirty years on we continue to strive to achieve this, never changing the goalposts.
The company is now driven by Managing Director, John Low Jnr, and Operations Director, Stuart Devine. Between them they strive to ensure everything is working well, the correct standard of food is being purchased and potential new products are sourced to the required Ashvale standard. Service standards are also very important to both of them and they do expect all our customers to be treated in a very welcoming and friendly manner. Both John and Stuart love to get out and about in our branches, relishing the opportunity to speak to our customers and take on board any comments or views they may have. If everything is working fine then just a friendly hello and smile is all we look for.
Both John and Stuart are aware that the success of The Ashvale is down to an incredible band of loyal staff. From management all the way down the line we employ some fantastic people some of whom, believe it or not, have been with us for the duration. Thirty years may seem like a long time but we can assure you that time flew by.
In 2015 Stuart was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for his services to the seafood industry and to charity work. The honour, of which he is very proud, was awarded for the work he has done in the industry training many people and passing on his knowledge not just in The Ashvale but for fish and chips the length and breadth of the country.
Charity work at The Ashvale is certainly worth a few words. We came up with the idea a few years ago of using our back restaurant for raising funds. People would come in, enjoy our fish and chips (of course) then we would take over and raise as much money as possible by running Race or Quiz Nights – not forgetting good old Bingo. These nights have been incredibly successful, winning us various awards, and, very shortly, we will break through our fund raising target of £1 Million. Stuart says “Yes, it’s fantastic that we are able to help raise that amount of money but more importantly we are reaching out to 1000s of organisations and the community spirit it creates is both amazing and humbling”. These events have spread to our other branches and our diary tends to work as far as a year in advance.
Our North East background is very important to us. When purchasing our products we ensure as far as possible that we buy from local suppliers: most of our fish comes straight from Peterhead Market and we are very grateful for the quality of produce our quite fantastic Scottish fishing fleet provides to us.
Our restaurants at all times are visited by many of these hardy souls not just for our fish and chips but to see the wonderful array of pictures of fishing boats both old and new. It’s not only the quality of our fish we take great care in buying – all other products are regularly checked to ensure they achieve our Ashvale high standards.