Scotland’s Cheesy Toast Shack, tired of seagulls snatching their customers’ food, came up with a clever solution: “seagull insurance”
The final days of summer are nearly upon us. It will also hopefully lead to the conclusion of a taxing situation involving, of all things, “seagull insurance.”
Our story brings us to St Andrews, Scotland. This majestic town is known for several historic locations, including the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, a frequent venue of one of golf’s four majors, The Open Championship. It’s also home to the Cheesy Toast Shack, located on the East Sands beach.
This seaside business, or “cheese toastie shop,” is owned by Kate Carter-Larg and her husband, Sam. It started out as a food truck in 2015 – or, as STV News depicted it, a “converted trailer” – and set up a kiosk along the majestic Scottish waters in 2018. The Cheesy Toast Shack has become a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. It has won awards for its grilled cheese sandwiches filled with mac and cheese, pulled pork, mushrooms, chorizo, haggis and more. They also use social media to their advantage, including Instagram and TikTok.
 Photo by Travis Leery |
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The couple’s kiosk struggled this summer with seagulls stealing or eating their customers’ food. They had unwisely put down their sandwiches to take photos of these culinary creations, the surroundings and themselves. The seabirds then swarmed around the unprotected food and flew off with it.
Although this was an occasional issue for the Cheesy Toast Shack over the years, there has been an uptick recently. In an Aug. 13 interview with GB News, Carter-Larg said that the “maximum attack we’ve had, like, the record, is 30 in one day.” They’ve always replaced the stolen food for free. Since each toastie costs £6.75 (C$11.97), this cuts into their business’s profit margin – and costs them “hundreds of pounds a day,” according to ITV News.
After exhausting several options, Carter-Larg’s husband took a “bit of tongue-in-cheek, a daft joke” he had with a reporter and turned it into an original idea, seagull insurance. For an additional £1, customers could purchase the “optional ‘gull insurance,’” noted The Scotsman on Aug. 9, “in a bid to still enable the family to replace customers’ food, but also assist the business in their compassionate endeavours.” If customers don’t want to pay the small sandwich tax, that’s perfectly fine.
UK media coverage exploded for a few days. I tracked down Carter-Larg and conducted a short interview (by email) on Aug. 13. She’s a pleasant, upbeat person who genuinely cares about her community and customers.
Seagulls are a common problem in her country – and ours. When I asked about their aggressive behaviour this summer, she took a matter-of-fact approach. “It was never really an issue before; however, in recent years, we’ve seen the number of attacks increase exponentially. It’s obviously claimed that we, as a human race, are overfishing in the North Sea, which means that their food sources are decreasing, and as result, the seagulls are needing to find other ways to find their food. Either that, or they heard the news that our toasties are so great that they can’t resist!”
“We’re always trying to turn a negative into a positive, and have always replaced people’s stolen toasties on us, as a gesture of goodwill,” she added. “Our customers are really at the focus and heart of our business, and it’s a mission of ours to make sure everyone leaves satisfied. We always replaced toasties for customers free of charge; however, with the increase of attacks, it was just becoming unsustainable to do.”
The optional seagull insurance would, therefore, protect customers and reduce Cheesy Toast Shack’s overall losses. “Any profits generated, we could directly channel back into our local community,” she wrote. “We are a small, independent, family-run business, and we’re happy that we can make decisions such as this without having to clear too much ‘red tape.’”
My final question was an obvious one. “While I realize you’re doing it to be nice and promote your business, do you feel it was a mistake to offer to replace these food items for free?” It’s one thing to comfort a young child who lost a lunch or snack to the seagulls, but adults should know better. If they’re more concerned about taking sandwich photos and beach selfies than protecting their food from seagulls, then it’s obvious who is at fault.
Carter-Larg has a different take.
“As much as people may believe we are doing this to promote our business, this is actually a byproduct of the original conception of the idea to just promote good karma,” she wrote in part. “We don’t feel it was a mistake. My husband grew up in this town, and we are not some big chain (which) just rolled in with the sole aim of maximizing profit. All our staff are on first-name terms with our regulars. We live, work and thrive in our community. We believe we are the busiest shop in town, as we genuinely put our customers at the heart of all we do. Our customers and our staff come before profits.”
Fair enough. It’s her family-owned business, her policy to replace lost toasties – and her decision to offer optional seagull insurance.
How’s it been working out? According to The Courier and Evening Telegraph, around 95 people purchased seagull insurance on the first day it was implemented. “Eight toasties needed [to be] replaced after being grabbed by the gulls,” reporter Joanna Bremner wrote on Aug. 15, “which equates to £54 raised for charity.” Not bad, all things considered.
Has St Andrews, the “home of golf,” also found a way to deal with the “wrath of the seagulls” thanks to the Cheesy Toast Shack? Time will tell. The initial flight seems to have found a solid patch of clear skies, if nothing else.
Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.
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