Spudman v Spud Bros. Spuddies v SpudBox. Yes, the country is gripped by this summer's unlikely blockbuster Spud Wars: Return of the Jacket Potato... with viral videos and trademark battles over the rock star of the street food circuit

Published: 19:18, 13 July 2026 | Updated: 19:18, 13 July 2026 It was a sorry downfall for a brand which was once the king of the shopping mall food court. Sorrier still for the fact few even noticed its demise. Spudulike was so thoroughly outshone by slick and exotic new competitors that, in later years, shoppers barely registered its presence in commercial hubs such as Glasgow’s Braehead. It was there in 2023 that the last remnant of a once-burgeoning empire finally closed its doors after accepting the game was up. British tastes, clearly, had moved on. The humble homegrown baked potato was a relic of a bygone era and no amount of fancy new toppings, it seemed, could bring it back. If there was a lesson to be learned it was surely that fast food providers of the modern era would have to do rather better than the most unglamourous of vegetables split in two and accessorised with your choice of dollop in the middle. What, then, were Edinburgh locals doing queuing outside a hot food van in April from as early as 3am? Why would as many as 500 wait in line outside a similar van in Glasgow? They were waiting for baked potatoes – breathless with excitement, some of them – and praying the vendors did not run out of stock before they got their one. Aberdeen was abuzz too earlier this year. A baked potato salesman known as Spudman had driven 425 miles from his home in Tamworth, Staffordshire, to ply his trade for a few days near the Granite City’s beach. ‘Spudman’ serves up one of his dishes for Queen Camilla He did a roaring trade. Nearby takeaway outlets could only look on in envy. Bizarrely, it seems, the potato has become the most fashionable foodstuff in the country. There is talk of a ‘renaissance’ for a vegetable traditionally seen as the ultimate symbol of culinary monotony. And that stodgy school dinners staple – the filled potato – is driving the resurgence. The evidence is clear from Companies House data alone. In 2023 – the year Spudulike finally went under – just seven food businesses using the word ‘spud’ were opened in the UK. The following year it was more than 40. In 2025 it was up to more than 70. Included in their number are SpudBuds in Ayr, Nae Just Spuds in Aberdeen, Spuddies and Spud Shack in Glasgow. Another new business, SpudBox on Glasgow’s south side, claims to be the UK’s first baked potato drive-thru. Edinburgh, meanwhile, is soon to be home to Scotland’s first SpudBros Express, one of the most rapidly expanding fast-food outlets in the country, which opens on Wednesday. Every other Scottish city is on their target list. Such is the rush for spud-related brand names that trademark disputes are breaking out. In November a Portsmouth trader had to abandon the name Spud Father after SpudBros argued ‘Spudfather’ was one of their menu items and a proprietary brand honouring their dad Tony. It is SpudBros – and their arch rival Spudman – who are the key to understanding the phenomenal transformation of the unloved potato into the rock star of the street food circuit. Lancashire siblings Jacob and Harley Nelson, who founded SpudBros out of an old tram carriage in their native Preston, are not simply cheery blokes dishing out lunch from a catering trailer. They are internet sensations fronting a digital empire with five million followers. Hyper-tuned to the online crowd, the brothers pull in an astonishing 30 million views a week on TikTok. Through a relentless barrage of videos that directly involve their audience in the daily chaos of the business of selling baked potatoes, they are reaping a spectacular reward – limitless free global advertising. It wasn’t always that way. When they took over the tram in 2020 they found themselves roundly ignored. Jacob reflected: ‘People would walk past, and they’d go to Subway or McDonald’s, and we’d ask them: “Why won’t you buy our jacket potatoes?” And they were just like, “It’s just a jacket potato isn’t it? It’s not sexy.’ So that was the business plan. How do we make the jacket potato a bit more sexy?” Spudman – an engaging father of nine with a pink Mohawk and kidney failure – is the other engine driving the cultural phenomenon. The 41-year-old, whose real name is Ben Newman, is every bit as astute a social media strategist as his Lancashire rivals. Commanding 5.3 million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram he bombards his platforms daily, frequently livestreaming his entire working shift direct from his trailer. Yes, untold thousands really do tune in to watch a man with pink hair slice open potatoes, slap on some butter, ladle on toppings and hand them over to customers. To his audience, this is no longer fast food; it is theatre. Newman even manages to garner interest by actively leaning into the utter simplicity of his product. ‘It’s just a jacket potato!’ he tells TikTok viewers. ‘You can get it anywhere!’ He adds: ‘If you’re coming halfway across the country for some life-changing epiphany moment you ain’t going to get it. What you are going to get is a really good jacket spud, good service and a smile at a reasonable price. ‘It’s not going to change your life. And anyone claiming that jacket potato is going to change your life is living in caca loo-loo land. This is just a humble food, an everyday food for everyday people. We don’t pretend to be some gourmet Michelin star thing. We don’t charge these kinds of prices either.’ Where the two pioneers of the digital-era baked potato phenomenon led, dozens of others have followed in their wake – many deploying the exact same social media playbook to drive their marketing. There is even a community feel to the baked potato explosion – a collegiate camaraderie among the vendors which sets their relationship apart from the cut-throat rivalries of traditional fast-food giants. On his pilgrimage to Aberdeen, Spudman’s first port of call was a joint lunchtime pop-up with Angela McCall, one of the owners of Nae Just Spuds in Northfield. Naturally their mash-up was filmed and uploaded straight to TikTok – handing the Scottish start-up a massive endorsement from one of the internet’s most powerful food icons. The potato has become the most fashionable foodstuff after years of being viewed as the  symbol of culinary monotony A starstruck Ms McCall acknowledged her professional debt to the trader, telling the Press and Journal: ‘Before we even opened the business, Spudman was someone I followed on social media and I look up to. ‘Out of all the spud businesses and franchises, he's the greatest because he's the one that set the standard.’ She added: ‘It's an honour having him in my shop.’ SpudBros, meanwhile, paid some respects of their own, filming a video inside Edinburgh’s Tempting Tattie, the oldest baked potato shop in the country. Incredibly, for a duo in the same business, they said the Scottish outlet’s offerings may be the best they had ever tasted. It was a telling illustration of the spud movement operating as a collective, pooling resources to validate a British-grown vegetable that, just a few years ago, had ceased to inspire. But the potato’s revival north of the Border is not simply predicated on pioneers from the south with armies of social media followers. Scotland has its own market disruptors thrusting the bashful tattie back into the spotlight. One of them is James Stirling, a Gen Z farmer from Angus, who has launched a highly successful new line in mashed potatoes. The 24-year-old’s Upper Dysart Larder brand is preservative free and uses vacuum packing technology to give the product a 60-day shelf life. He and his family – all of whom work on Upper Dysart Farm – now supply Aldi with 25,000 units a week of the signature brand. Meanwhile their ‘par-cooked’ baked potatoes go to Aldi, Spar and farm shops up and down the country. Mr Stirling says: ‘You can’t miss the spud revival! It’s all over social media, small businesses growing exponentially by turning classic foods like jacket potatoes into trends and viral moments. ‘We’ve always believed in the versatility of potatoes and how much room there is to experiment and play with new products. And we’ve always believed in the quality of what we grow. So it’s incredible to see potatoes get the recognition they deserve, and knowing we’re in the right place at the right time with the right product.’ Does he think the potato simply needed a rebrand to slot back in at the core of the national diet? ‘I think the potato never really went anywhere, it just needed new champions. The traditional bag of potatoes can be a hard sell when people are time-poor and want convenience, so we asked how we could offer that same quality in a format that works for modern life. ‘That's what the mash range is: a classic reimagined yet still rooted in comfort, nostalgia and simplicity for the consumer.’ The young farmer, who has worked in the family business full-time for the last nine years, was given financial support for the mashed potato venture by Royal Bank of Scotland which is aiming to drive growth in the rural economy by representing his generation of land workers. As for the online exploits of SpudBros, Spudman and their growing band of disciples, he says: ‘What they've done is brilliant! They've shown that if you do something simple brilliantly and talk about it in the right way, people connect with it.’ There is another major Scottish player in the equation – and irony of ironies – it is the very same company which failed to revive the ailing Spudulike empire when it first went into administration in 2019. Family-owned Albert Bartlett was the Lanarkshire-based potato giant which bought the brand out of bankruptcy in a bid to secure a direct route to the high street – growing their own potatoes and selling them in takeaways and food courts. Gen Z farmer James Stirling has launched a highly successful new line in mashed potatoes They invested heavily, hiring TV chef James Martin to revamp the menu, yet customers could not be inspired and the whole venture folded completely in 2023. It seemed at the time the public had fallen out of love with the baked potato. They hadn’t. They had simply tired of its presence in corporate food courts. But even the most cursory glance at the SpudBros’ TikTok reveals the big loser from the Spudulike collapse did not remain a loser very long. Albert Bartlett’s potatoes are promoted everywhere on the brothers’ videos. It was they who helped bankroll the siblings’ pop-up events in Edinburgh and Glasgow this year, supplying the potatoes for publicity-generating giveaways which attract huge queues which, in turn, feed the social media beast. It is a win-win alliance. The Nelsons get to lean on corporate financial backing and still maintain the front of plucky street-level traders while Albert Bartlett secures non-stop free marketing for its core products showcased to the millions devouring the SpudBros' feeds. Who knows quite where it will all end? While the brothers feverishly chart an expansion into multiple bricks and mortar premises across the UK, Spudman remains the maverick – a travelling merchant turning up anywhere and everywhere for shifts that look less like retail and more like performance art. ‘I turned down million-pound offers to franchise a year or so ago,’ said Newman. ‘I actually want a work-life balance at some point. It didn’t make sense for me.’ Besides, he said, he has no wish to compete with local jacket potato vendors – even if they have come into the market on his coat tails. ‘I want to go and build up the industry and support the little guy, not go up against them,’ he said. Potatoes, it turns out, were never the problem. The nation adores them. What it abhors in the internet age is a lack of imagination.