'Spudman': Jacket potato seller is dubbed new 'Binley Mega Chippy' after becoming global TikTok hit

NationalWorld.com

A jacket potato seller has been dubbed the new 'Binley Mega Chippy' after becoming a global TikTok sensation attracting visitors from across the world.  Ben Newman - aka Spudman - has seen customers queuing for up to three hours to get their hands on his famous spuds in the quaint market town of Tamworth, Staffs.  Via SWNS

Transcript

00:00 I'm having...

00:02 Anything else?

00:03 No but on the other one.

00:04 Yeah.

00:05 I want cheese and...

00:06 Kerry, Hannah from Mansfield.

00:08 It took us an hour and ten minutes to get here.

00:11 Juicy.

00:13 Did you have a drink?

00:14 No.

00:15 We didn't, we planned to.

00:16 Oh!

00:18 Need a bag?

00:19 Yes please.

00:20 Fanta from Tito, where Tater Man is, and I'm going to enjoy my dinner today from here.

00:25 Tuna please.

00:26 Cheese and tuna, no butter.

00:29 Been here 21 years, in Tamworth.

00:32 Why did we get started on social media?

00:36 Came back after Covid and we needed to let people know we were here basically.

00:41 So it was, how are we going to do this?

00:43 One of my lads put TikTok in front of me.

00:46 We made a few videos and I think my second or third video got half a million views.

00:50 And it opened my eyes to the power of TikTok and social media and never looked back really.

00:56 We posted every day, you know, three, four, five videos every day on TikTok.

01:01 And we've grown this amazing following.

01:04 And then all of a sudden in October, video after video after video started going viral.

01:12 One of them nearly 100 million views.

01:23 People genuinely see how much I enjoy my job.

01:26 And I love coming to work and I love serving the people of Tamworth.

01:29 Obviously our lovely jacket potatoes.

01:35 These are grown 10 miles away.

01:37 Local farmer that we use.

01:39 We use a variety called Melody.

01:41 Really nice, really nice one.

01:44 What do we put on it?

01:46 We've got beans, curry, chilli, minced beef, pulled pork, coleslaw, tuna mayo, sweet corn and cheese, of course.

01:56 We like to support local farmers.

02:08 I grew up, my grandad was a farmer and so supporting local is, you know, essential to us as well.

02:15 It is nice to keep the money in the area.

02:19 So the free day was an idea I had six months ago before we really went viral.

02:33 And it was a nice way to give back to the community.

02:37 Basically, we just wanted to give everyone we possibly could a jacket potato for free.

02:45 It grew into a far bigger event than I ever thought it would.

02:48 We had queues of nearly four hours long at one point.

02:51 We served 2,200 potatoes in five hours, which is no little accomplishment.

03:00 I'm sure there's some kind of world record in there somewhere.

03:03 Amazing atmosphere.

03:04 We raised nearly £11,000 for kidney research.

03:12 It's charity very close to my heart.

03:14 I've been on dialysis for 12 years and three failed transplants.

03:18 So yeah, kidney research is a big thing for me.

03:21 And it also brings so much trade to Tamworth.

03:29 Yes, we were giving away freebies, but I spoke to the other food vendors

03:33 and they were all busy and had really good days for the time of year.

03:37 So it was really nice to see Tamworth buzzing and lots of people coming in and spending their money.

03:43 Yeah, it was good. It was fun times.

03:46 Hi, I'm April. I heard about this through TikTok and we're from Telford.

03:50 And we came up today to just give it a go.

03:52 I've got a jacket potato with tuna and cheese.

03:55 And we probably only queued for about 10 minutes to get it.

03:58 Hi, we're from Birmingham. My name's Jason.

04:05 Hi, I'm from Birmingham. My name's Sue.

04:07 And we're here to enjoy the lovely spud from Spudma.

04:10 I've got cheese and coleslaw.

04:12 And I've got pulled pork and cheese. It's lovely.

04:15 It's lovely.

04:17 [Tram sounds]

04:19 The queue's not going to end in a minute now.

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