Can plumber be online food hit? – Fat chance
IT’S not unusual for people to have a sideline these days - but a plumber turned food blogger is really making a meal out of his.
Samuel Bradbury, 33, from Macclesfield, goes by the name of ‘Fat Sam Eats’ on social media platforms and has over 40,000 followers on Instagram.
He works full-time as a plumber but his journey into the gourmet world began six years ago after a friend took him to then ‘underground’ restaurant Almost Famous.
Samuel said: “I am a plumber and that’s the job I do full-time and have done for 17 years for the same company.
“I have always had a love for food but I remember going to a restaurant called Almost Famous in Manchester. The burgers and hot dogs they used to do were just absolutely amazing.
“I fell in love and on my way back home I remember thinking how I’d love to go to places like that do it as a job.”
His online presence began on Facebook, where he would post pictures of basic meals that he would eat throughout the day on an account called ‘I heart bacon’.
“I just started putting posts out of pictures of tea and crumpets, it was really rubbish at first,” he said.
“I started making bacon butties and meat from the butchers to post on the account, then I started making normal food and burgers on the account.”
At the time, Samuel’s food account had just over 1,000 followers but since a rebrand - inspired by the Fat Sam character in Bugsy Malone - this number has surged.
He hopes to grow still further and has already worked with big names such as KFC, but admits this is hard while holding down a steady full-time job.
Samuel said: “I’ve never really taken it too seriously, I’ve always just done what I enjoy and people just seem to like the content.
“YouTube is a big thing that I want to get myself into but it’s hard to get into when you’re working full-time and have a family as it is really time-consuming in comparison to making reels for my Instagram account.
“It’s a scary jump because I’ve got a family and a mortgage, but you get to a point that if you don’t make that jump now, the opportunity might pass me by.”
His main income from food blogging is working with brands.
Samuel can be found on Instagram and Facebook under the username ‘@ fat.sam.eats’.