THE GOOD SPUD GUIDE
How I’ve turned my passion for potatoes into booming business – I shift 400 spuds in 4 hours & even Tom Walker visited
Lauren explains why baking the perfect spud is not that simple
TIKTOK fans have a growing new obsession – with the humble spud.
The hashtag #potato has clocked up 750,000 posts on TikTok, while across the globe hordes of carb lovers are flooding to town centre food vans day and night.
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Some even travel across countries joining queues for the versatile root veg snaking around the block.
One couple jetted 6,000 miles from Malaysia then hired a car from Gatwick airport to get their fix.
In the US, spud fans are even making their own baked beans in a bid to create Brits’ favourite cheese and beans topping, because you can’t buy Heinz beans Stateside.
Ben Newman, known as The Spudman, is an unlikely icon.
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He joined TikTok to keep an eye on what his kids were viewing and started posting videos about making a potato.
He now has 2.8million followers. The seller, from Tamworth, Staffs, claims to once have sold 1,500 jacket potatoes in one day.
But hot on his heels is mum-of-three Lauren Jones from Barnsley, South Yorks.
Known as Tatie Lady, she’s turned her teenage obsession for spuds into a booming business.
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Lauren started her venture in November, operating from a Wickes car park just outside the town centre.
Despite only opening on Saturdays, she now shifts more than 400 steaming-hot spuds in the space of four hours.
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Lauren and husband Ryan, 39, struggle to cope with demand, running out by around 2pm as hungry customers queue for up to two hours.
The success we’ve had is phenomenal. We can’t believe it
Lauren
“The success we’ve had is phenomenal. We can’t believe it,” she says.
“I have 6,000 followers on Facebook but it’s gone mental on TikTok. I joined three weeks ago and I’ve got 11,000 followers.
“We are attracting attention far and wide with one fella who said he didn’t like jacket potatoes being dragged from London by his wife to try one of ours to see if we could change his mind.
“He said it was the best meal he’d ever eaten.
“The Spudman really helped our business by plugging us on TikTok and we’ve even had singer Tom Walker visit.”
Lauren, 37, decided to open a spud trailer after Ryan had to stop work as a bricklayer because of a bad back.
“There was a Tatie Man in town selling potatoes for The Baked Potato Company for 40 years, but he never came back after Covid,” she says.
“I remember growing up eating jacket potatoes from there.
"When I was a teenager and worked in town, I’d have two to three a week.
“The people of Barnsley, including me, were gutted when it went, so we thought it was a good idea to reopen — but this time with me, the Tatie Lady.
“We bought the business, including the trailer and old ovens.
I think the potato fascination is bonkers
"And the original owner Des, now 72, has come on board to show us the tricks of the trade.”
But according to Lauren — who is as a personal assistant at Premier League club Sheffield United during the week — baking the perfect spud is not simple.
“They take a long time to get to perfection and if you make them too far in advance, they lose their crispy skins,” says Lauren, whose topping of choice is cheese and beans with garlic butter, crispy onions and chilli relish.
“Everybody is pleased we are back and we are so proud to be part of the history of Barnsley.
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“I think the potato fascination is bonkers. I only did one video and it went mad.
"I couldn’t have timed the setting up of my business and the potato craze any better, but I’m here riding the wave and loving it. And who doesn’t love a jacket potato?”
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