Meath siblings’ deep-fried jam sandwich wins Best Start-Up at the Irish/Australian awards

An Irish brother and sister have picked up a big business award in Australia after their chip shop chain came up with the brainwave of deep-frying a jam sandwich — which contains 800 calories of mostly fat and which has been slammed by health experts.

Will and Claire Dolan, from Kells, Co Meath, hit on the idea of deep-frying the jam sambo in their Traditional Chip Shop near Sydney’s legendary Bondi Beach.

They now have such a hit on their hands that they have added two more shops to their chain, with another to be launched in early 2016.

Will and wife Suzanne own the business, while Claire is general manager. The siblings’ brainwave has proved so successful that last week they won Best Start-Up at the Irish/Australian awards for Irish-owned businesses.

Claire says it is all down to their deep-fried speciality.

Will and Claire Dolan’s award-winning Paul’s Jammy Wotsit, a deep-fried jam sandwich.

“It’s our biggest seller and it’s a pretty basic idea, a plain old jam sandwich deep-fried a few times with some icing sugar sprinkled on top,” she says. “One of our food suppliers came up with the idea and we called it Paul’s Jammy Wotsit after him.”

“It’s a real sugar rush and it’s not just the Irish who love it — the locals are big into it as well and a lot of expat British people love it.”

Health experts have declared the deep-fried speciality a health hazard.

Dublin-based nutritionist Orlagh Walsh said: “It’s not the healthiest option on the menu that’s for sure, it would have a minimum of 400 calories in it and when you deep-fry it then, there would be double that.

“It’s not heart-attack food but it’s certainly health-hazard stuff.”