The humble baked potato is enjoying a renaissance, with TikTok algorithms bringing the stuffed spud to new audiences and transforming this once-tired classic into the lunch of the moment.
Young potato sellers are breathing new life into the traditional British meal, with modern twists on favourite toppings.
And by broadcasting life from their pitches on social media, they are bringing in new customers from as far away as Australia and South Africa.
By 10.30am, a queue is already forming outside a closed baked potato van in a converted tram in Preston, Lancashire. Waiting in line are customers from Liverpool, Glasgow, and Orlando, Florida.
The first customer of the day gets their lunch for free and people have camped outside from as early as 4.30am in the past. Ask almost anyone in the queue why they’re here and they will give you the same answer – they have seen the Spud Bros on TikTok.
The Spud Bros are real-life brothers Jacob and Harley Nelson, and they have more than 2.6 million followers on the social media platform. Over the past year their posts have been viewed 1.5bn times on TikTok and views are running at 10m a day.
They have even introduced global celebrities to the baked spud – the Jonas Brothers are now fans.
“Everyone loves a jacket potato,” Harley, 22, said.
“It’s good comfort food,” Jacob, 29, added. “You can’t beat it, nice in winter, just filling. And it’s cheap; five pound for a cheese and bean.”
Part of their success is down to the jacket potato’s enduring appeal, the brothers said, but also, they have tried to improve on the classic ingredients.
Their chilli is made with cocoa powder and a blend of 10 different herbs and spices; their grated cheese is a mixture of three sourced from a local supplier; and their garlic chicken comes from a nearby Indian restaurant.
“We took the jacket potato, but then put our own twist on it as well,” Jacob said. “We’ve elevated it.”
But as much as their food, it is their social media videos that draw people in. “Yesterday we had 5,000 people watching us livestreaming what we’re doing,” he added.
The TikTok account was started by their dad, Tony Nelson, 58, who took over the pitch after the death of his friend Keith Roberts, whose family had had the stand since 1955. Roberts had given Jacob his first Saturday job at the age of 14, selling potatoes.
When Tony took over the stall four years ago, he brought Harley onboard to run it with him. They would see students from the nearby college ignore the potato tram as they went to buy lunch from the fast food chains nearby.
“It was breaking my heart seeing all these people walk past,” Tony said. “So we went out and spoke to them, and said, ‘What would it take for you to come and get a spud’?”
“They just said spuds aren’t sexy,” he added, “but one of the things they did say was about going on the social media.”
Later Jacob quit his job and joined the family business, and he and Harley started to grow the TikTok account that Tony had started, “and it’s just gone absolutely berserk since,” Tony said.
“If you’d have seen this queue three or four years ago, it would have probably been people between 50 and 70 years old, that was our demographic,” he added. “If you look at it now, they’re all youngsters that are coming.”
In the tram is a scratch map showing where their customers have come from; Kenya, Japan, and California are all scratched off already.
“We had one girl,” Jacob said, “and she was doing a Europe tour, and she was from America, and she specifically planned to come to the UK, just because she saw our TikTok videos.
“She said she wouldn’t have come to the UK for anything else. So we did a video with her. We gave her Heinz beans, Vimto, the northern nectar … She really loved it.”
Today’s furthest customer is Jason Sales, 32, who is originally from Connecticut but now lives in Orlando. He is in the UK visiting his partner’s family.
Jacob sought him out in the queue and handed him a free spud – topped with cheese and chilli.
“It’s delicious,” Sales said. “I’ve had baked potatoes before, but I’ve never had anything like that before, loaded to the top.”
And the Spud Bros business has helped to put Preston itself on the map; their account led to the Lancashire town trending on TikTok, and when the brothers travel, people now recognise the name of their home town.
“I no longer say that I live near Manchester,” Harley said. “I can say I’m from Preston.”
It is not just the Spud Bros who are bringing British baked potatoes to global audiences. In Tamworth, Ben Newman, known as Spudman, has 3.7 million followers on TikTok.
He has had his stall for more than two decades, but after trade slowed down significantly during Covid, he turned to TikTok to build his business back up again.
He said when he first took over the pitch he “didn’t really do social media”. “I didn’t see the point. Back in those days passing trade in the town was enough to sustain it,” he said.
“Now everyone walks around with [their] head in the phone. So that’s where you’ve got to advertise to them. That’s where you’ve got to be.”
And it is not just the social media stars who are seeing spud sales soar. Newman often shouts out other “potato men and ladies” up and down the country on his account, and “they’ve literally sold out every day”.
“Look at the number of jacket spud vans that are now popping up everywhere,” Tony said. “And we just get inundated with, ‘How do I start up? How do you do it? What do you do? What do I need?’
“The lads will travel around as well, they’ll help other people with it,” he said. “It’s really good.”
