The cost of running fryers is causing an increasing number of restaurants in Denmark to change their menus, according to newspaper Politiken. 

Fast food staples like curly fries, sweet potato fries or the classic French fry or pomfret as it’s know in Danish may become a rarer commodity at restaurants, the newspaper writes.

Chains synonymous with serving fries could meanwhile be forced to suffer some damage to their bottom lines – or raise prices – as the cost of cooking the food goes up.

Increasing energy and raw material costs could influence the importance given to fried foods on restaurant menus.

“A fryer costs an insane amount of money to run,” Anders Aagaard of the restaurant Madklubben told newspaper Børsen.

“It uses an insane amount of power and the oil is insanely expensive. But boiling some new potatoes instead, which aren’t very big and therefore don’t take long to cook, can help us to save on [the energy] front,” he said. 

While Madklubben plans to strike French fries from the menu entirely, some restaurants famous for their fries — such as McDonald’s or Danish chains Jagger and Sunset Boulevard — are more likely to take a financial hit or raise their prices.

“We can, of course, like everyone else in the industry, recognise the increasing prices of energy and raw materials. We are following developments closely, but for now we are not changing the menu,” Sunset Boulevard CEO Jens Broch told Politiken.

“For example, fries are such a large request from our guests that we would go a long way to make sure these are available on the menu,” he said.

Both Jagger and McDonald’s confirmed to Politiken’s Ibyen supplement that they have raised prices on some menu items.

Jagger’s CEO and founder Christian Brandt said the company had “dragged it out as long as possible” but had now raised prices to account for increasing costs. Brandt also said the company had no plans to remove fries from its menus.

McDonalds, which has raised the prices of some of the cheapest burgers on its menu – known in Denmark as “coinoffers” – also said it would be holding onto the French fry.

“We recognise the increase in price of products. But we won’t be taking fries off the menu. People come to our restaurants because of things like French fries,” head of communications Fannie Pramming told Politiken.