Two brothers have become a global sensation and are even rivalling TikTok star Spud Man with their jacket potatoes as they cash in on the latest craze.
Jacob, 28, and Harley Nelson, 21, are known as the Spud Brothers and customers queue for hours to get their jackets from their tram in Preston Flag Market.
After going viral on TikTok, people have travelled from Australia, Turkey, Spain, Germany and Amsterdam to Lancashire to try their potatoes.
The success comes amid a new craze among the young, fuelled by social media, for jacket potatoes.
Rival potato vendor, Ben Newman, 39, known as ‘Spud Man’, became a sensation on social media thanks to the craze, with tens of millions of hits online and a fanbase extending from Malaysia to Hawaii.
But now Jacob and Harely, whose username is @TheSpudBrothers, are seeing similar success and they often have to turn customers away due to the high demand.
Jacob said: ‘We open at 11.30am and we always have around 30 people in the queue waiting for us to open.
Jacob, 28, and Harley Nelson, 21, aka TheSpudBrothers have become a global sensation for their baked potatoes
The brothers (pictured) started appealing to students on TikTok and were shocked at how many followers they got
People queue for hours in Preston just to try the brothers’ jacket potatoes
Ben Newman, aka Spud Man (pictured), has also seen surprising success from serving the humble jacket potato
‘Then it’s constant to 3pm so we have to turn people away because the jacket potatoes take around two hours to cook.
‘We hate doing it and disappointing people, but we have to do it.
‘We don’t even know how many potatoes we can serve in a day, which is bizarre, because it’s constantly busy from open to close.
‘We’ve had people come from Germany, Amsterdam, Turkey, Spain and Australia come to visit.
‘We love the support and we are so grateful for people trying our little potato van in Preston so we always try and make it special for them.
‘We try and serve food and also give people that customer interaction.’
The brothers have managed to get millions of views posting themselves serving jackets
The brothers often have to turn people away because demand is so high
Spud Brothers Jacob and Harley took over their TikTok account from their dad, Anthony, 57, who managed to get a whopping 60,000 followers.
But Jacob quit his job as a sales manager to work at the company full time and now they have almost reached a million followers.
The sibling duo decided to start posting on TikTok to market themselves to the thousands of students that live in Preston.
Instead of highly-edited videos, they decided to want to bring ‘a lot of northern humour’ to their content.
Jacob said: ‘There’s a lot of students in Preston and we just used to see them walking past the tram, going to McDonalds or Greggs.
‘My dad started the TikTok and struggled with it – even though he did get us up to around 60,000 followers.
‘But then me and Harley decided to take it up to the next level so we did a lot of research and decided we wanted to bring a lot of northern humour to it.
‘We wanted banter and for it to be more raw and natural, so a lot of the videos that we do is just raw footage.
‘It might be slightly edited but what you see, is what you get and a lot of people in the north west get it.’
Jacob said they didn’t think they would have as many followers as they do now.
But within months, they had hundreds of thousands of people following them.
He added: ‘We are nearly at a million now and I never would have thought we would have got to this stage, just based on the humble jacket potato.
They’ve now added ‘Harley’s Tram Chilli’ as an option (pictured) and they are trying new butters
A picture of the Spud Brothers’ jacket potato with beans
‘We’ve got one video that’s got 20 million views. It’s just of me doing a pov, doing what we do, serving the spuds.’
The business was founded in 1955 by Ernie Rhodes, who then passed it on to his nephew Keith Roberts in 1978.
Exactly 30 years later, Keith passed the company to his son, who was also called Keith, but he passed away in 2020.
Harley and Jacob’s dad took over the business, and the two brothers have served jacket potatoes five days a week ever since.
Now punters flock to pick up baked potato meals with a variety of toppings, which sell for around £5 a pop.
Jacob added: ‘I actually worked with Keith and it was my first ever Saturday job 14 years ago.
‘It was always a good business that did well and had a good reputation in Preston.
‘Nobody in his family wanted to take it on so he spoke to my dad about it because they were good friends and I used to work there.
‘We just decided to buy the business and made a go of it to keep the legacy going. It’s just insane.’
The sibling duo serve all types of classic spud toppings including cheese and beans, tuna and coleslaw.
They’ve now added ‘Harley’s Tram Chilli’ as an option, which Jacob says has also gone viral on the social media platform.
Jacob said: ‘We’re now trying to really focus on the food and make the best jacket potatoes.
‘There’s a TikToker called @Mr.Munchbox who went all around the UK to try all the jacket potato places and he ranked us number one.
‘We’re now trying out different butters. So we’ve got a garlic one, a chilli butter and we’re looking at a lemon and pepper butter.
‘We’re also looking at spicy beans and homemade chilli con carne which has gone viral on TikTok as well.
‘We call it ‘Harley’s Tram Chilli and everyone is going mad for it.’
A lot of British staples such as crumble and baked beans on toast have become highly sought after thanks to influencers online.
The latest humble dish to go viral in recent months is the jacket potato, with millennials taking over the internet in their droves to lap up content about one of Britain’s oldest and easiest-to-prepare snacks.
Ben Newman (pictured) is known as the Spud Man and has an army of fans online
Mr Newman (pictured), 39, said he is under ‘no illusion’ they are currently experiencing a huge wave of hype for jacket potatoes
Thanks to the power of TikTok, and the recent booming fascination with the classic British dish, the ‘Spud Man’ has been selling as many as 1,450 spuds a day.
Mr Newman, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, told MailOnline: ‘Retail has changed. There isn’t the passing trade in town. You can’t just rely on footfall of people and word of mouth anymore.
‘January is normally a hard time for a lot of market traders and shops in town.
‘But the amount of people that are just in Tamworth on a Saturday and throughout the week, like everyone is having a really good January off the back of this.’
He added: ‘We had customers today from Malaysia. They landed in Gatwick this morning and drove straight up.
‘They came to England to get a jacket potato. I asked them ‘Have you got holiday plans?’, and they were like ‘No, we came to England to come and see you’.’
Brittany Miller (pictured) sent TikTok into pandemonium with her jacket potatoes and cheese cauliflower dish, amassing over 7.9 million views
People flocked to the comment section begging her to teach them how to make the cauliflower cheese – one person mistook the spuds for a ‘brioche bun’
Ben has also leveraged the recent social media frenzy to benefit other jacket potato vendors across the UK, with many experiencing non-stop trade after his social media videos.
However, the content creator, who skyrocketed from 350,000 to 1.9 million followers on TikTok in October, is under ‘no illusion’ they are currently experiencing a huge wave of hype.
‘They’re not coming just for jacket but are they’re coming to meet a TikToker. They’re coming to show support and see what it’s all about.
‘We’re a social media business that sells potatoes. Social media is just as big a thing as the actual business now.’
TikTok influencer Brittany Miller, who has a following of over 1.9million, stunned followers with her jacket potato and cauliflower cheese recipe.
In a video with over 7.9million views, she said: ‘I always mash the potato into the butter because I want all the potato to be drenched in butter.’
While many were begging for the cauliflower cheese recipe, others unfamiliar with jacket potatoes were left stunned.
‘Girl I thought that was a brioche bun at first,’ one quipped, while another questioned: ‘Is a jacket potato the same thing as baked potato?’
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