Deep frying innovators finding TikTok success
BBCA pair of cousins who run a fish and chip shop have found TikTok fame with their unusual creations.
When Ban Vanezi and Ban Prokopiou took over the family business in Wellington, Shropshire, they started with a video of a burger with "so many random different things in it".
After it got millions of views, they started taking requests to deep fry different things, from chocolate birthday cakes to pumpkins, to a sausage with nine layers of batter.
Their social media success has boosted their business, with people travelling long distances to make their requests in person.
Vanezi said the Silverfish, on Tan Bank in Wellington, had been serving fish and chips since 1940 and came into his family in 1981.
He began working there when he was 15 and eight years ago took over.
He was joined in 2020 by his cousin Prokopiou, who came to the UK from Cyprus to study bakery and patisserie at university in Birmingham.
Prokopiou had already found success on TikTok, with one of his accounts attracting 1.3m followers, and suggested the "extravagant burgers" Vanezi made for himself should be filmed and put on the social media platform.
They gave it a try, and were rewarded with hundreds of thousands of views.
Prokopiou said afterwards people started suggesting assorted things for them to fry.
"It just evolved from there and we started battering loads of extravagant things."
The requests have taken the pair in all sorts of directions. After battering Aldi's Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake, they received a request from Marks and Spencer to batter one of their Colin the Caterpillar cakes.
Vanezi said they had become used to unexpected requests, with people coming from miles away to sample particular foodstuffs they had put online.
One couple arrived after travelling for more than two hours and requested a battered kebab which was not on their menu.
Vanezi said: "Because they asked so nicely, we said why not."
Their success has also allowed Prokopiou to indulge his first passion - baking - and he now sells his brownies and cheesecakes from the fish and chip shop too.
In recent years chippies have come under pressure from an increase in the price of fish.
Vanezi said they had started experimenting with cheaper fish like hake and pollock to keep costs down for customers.
But after 86 years of the Silverfish serving the people of Wellington, he said he was confident for the future and added: "I don't think it will ever not be a fish and chip shop."
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