Tater TikTok-er takes town by storm

Ben Newman will be giving out free baked potatoes on Saturday

A jacket potato seller said he had sold almost 1,500 potatoes in a single day after global success on TikTok.

Social media posts from Ben Newman - aka Spudman - are so a-peeling, he has become an international mash hit, but he admits to being in the dark as to why.

In the meantime, he keeps posting and visitors keep arriving to his trailer in Tamworth town centre, Staffordshire. If you bake it, they will come.

Among those to taste his taters, he said, were customers from across the globe.

Mr Newman joined TikTok to promote his business in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has since been praised for using his prominent pomme de terre profile to promote the town and other local businesses.

He said of post-pandemic trading: “We got back into the town centre and we needed to let people know where we were.

“This new thing, TikTok, had come around and we started posting a few videos on there.”

He said he simply posted updates on what he did, livestreaming his work, with thousands of people eventually tuning in from around the world to watch.

'Spudman' Ben Newman has become an internet sensation with his viral TikTok videos

He said: “We did a video with a couple who flew over from Malaysia, landed in Gatwick, hired a car and came straight over for a jacket potato.”

Mr Newman has set up a partnership with a wholesaler, and will be handing out free potatoes at his pitch on Saturday.

He said the gesture was funded through his social media activity, and he was pleased to have the chance to “give something back” after all the support he had been shown.