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BBC News
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
How Preston's Spud Bros became TikTok stars with jacket potatoes
"You can never get sick of spuds," says Jacob Nelson, one half of the Spud Bros, whose fun videos of jacket potatoes loaded with various fillings have garnered them over seven million followers worldwide across all their social 30, and his 22-year-old brother Harley run their business from an old tram carriage in Preston's Flag have been tuber-based offerings on the site since 1955 when Ernie Rhodes set up his hot potato cart before passing it on to Keith son Keith junior "became an absolute legend for Preston," Harley said. When Keith died, Harley and his dad Tony bought the business. "We started in 2020 with the second [Covid-19 pandemic] lockdown, Tony said. "Me and Harley were there and we opened the hatch and there wasn't a soul around. "I turned to Harley and said 'what have we done?'." But then older brother Jacob, aka Jake, came on board."Jake's vision was to create a global brand from a small potato truck and inspire the youngsters that you can do anything," dad Tony seems to have all gone according to plan. Millions have watched the videos from the tater tram and the Spud Bros now boast 4.2 million TikTok followers and more than seven million followers worldwide on all their credit their dad, the "Spudfather" for their unlikely fame as he was the one who started the TikTok account, gaining 60,000 followers with his "dad dancing" and "dressing up in some questionable costumes"."We rebranded to Spud Bros in 2023, and I think within two or three days of posting our second video, it went viral," Jacob said."It just snowballed from there." The Lancashire lads have recently joined YouTube and already have more than a million subscribers."We post 'day in the life' and 'behind the scenes' long-form videos," Jacob said. "We've got Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, so we're across all platforms and producing 500 million views a month - and that's just from a potato."The support from everybody is unreal and we're forever grateful."It is hard work, but we just keep going, doing Preston proud, we love it."They are known for their generosity, giving away free potatoes to the first in the queue - and there's always a for anyone wanting to know the most popular topping? Garlic butter, cheese, beans "our famous tram sauce" and crispy onions - and the potatoes are sourced from local farmers. They are also hoping to replace their original Flag Market tram with a new unit the size of two shipping containers and plan to have shops in London, Liverpool and "we're also going global, we're going to Amsterdam".But their hearts will always remain in their home city - and they've just been announced as the front-of-shirt sponsor for Preston North End for 2025-26."Everything that we do is for Preston," Jacob said. "Even though we are collaborating with some of the biggest influencers out there like Mr Beast and Will Smith, we will always come back to Preston."With hard work, passion, vision, you can achieve anything." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
BBC News
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
How a Coventry-born chef became a Tik Tok sensation
A Coventry-born chef whose TikTok food videos have racked up thousands of views online has said social media videos can be easier to follow than recipe Jaspal, from What Nav Eats, currently has 102,000 followers and 2.2 million likes on the social media chef and foodie has been posting recipes online for about 18 months and has said TikTok and Instagram, and just watching people cook, are helping to broaden people's food Jaspal, who now lives near Manchester, said she had always been interested in food and used to linger in the kitchen when her parents were cooking at the family home in Warwickshire. She said she started cooking and showing her dinners on social media for family and friends, and a few suggested she make her account public."I uploaded my leftover roast dinner pie and it racked up 4.5 million views and the rest is history," she said."Since then, every evening I go online and I post what I'm having for dinner and then, occasionally, I'll post the recipe if it needs a recipe." 'Recipes can be daunting' Ms Jaspal told how social media had helped her hold on to her Indian heritage with videos of people making traditional curries."These recipes have been passed by generations," she said, and those recipes are being brought back and made more accessible to younger generations. She said videos could be better than recipe books, adding: "Sometimes you look at recipes and they're daunting because they list multiple ingredients and it's almost like – well I've got to go and do a whole food shop just to get those ingredients in."When I'm cooking, I'm trying to find something with few ingredients, or I'll look at some hacks."How can we cheat our way out of this to make a quick easy weekday dinner? What other foods are on the market that we can use, and therefore cobble it together in about 20 minutes?"It's more enjoyable to cook within 20 minutes but also people can visually see how we're putting it together."What we don't want is 100 different ingredients and we've got no reason to ever use them again." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
