Instead, the 26-year-old was put on a waiting list because the COVID-19 pandemic had created a backlog of applicants. This gave him time to think.
“I actually wanted to do something more creative,” he told Newsweek, “but I just didn’t have the confidence or know-how on what to do.”
Bored at home in Dubai, U.A.E, he started posting cooking videos to TikTok, having had modest experience preparing food as a chalet boy when he was 18.
His account, @TheHealChef, now has over a million followers, with viewers dining out on his deliciously simple recipes and his deep baritone voice which many think sounds like Chris Hemsworth’s in Thor.
However, Heal’s success is in no way unique. During the pandemic, TikTok has elevated many home chefs to stardom, and they didn’t even have to leave their own kitchen.
In 2020, the appetite for food content on the video-sharing app grew when people, suddenly stuck indoors, turned to cooking.
The hashtag FoodTikTok now has a whopping 19.8 billion views, whereas TikTokFood has a further 28.1 billion.
James Stafford, head of partnerships and community at TikTok, told Newsweek: “Over the past year we have seen a huge surge in food content being shared and enjoyed on TikTok.
“From the Tortilla wrap hack that has transformed the way we tackle lunchtime, to the feta pasta phenomenon which caused sales of feta to soar due to this easy to replicate recipe.”
And business is lucrative, with some food creators already making six figures.
But for most it’s about building a brand with the aim of using their platform to branch out as entrepreneurs, starting their own restaurant or writing books.
Creators can also monetize their videos on the TikTok Creator Fund, where they get paid per click, or engage in brand deals and advertisements.
However, this arrangement is just as fruitful for companies to tap into.
In May, the Guardian reported that TikTok was used by 55 percent of those aged 16 to 23 and 24 percent of 24-to-39-year-olds in the last three months.
Additionally, food or drink was purchased by 34 percent of TikTok users who follow social media influencers after they had seen it promoted on the app.
One person who has been approached by brands is Tri Phan, who shot to fame on the platform despite no formal culinary training.
The 24-year-old grew up in Vietnam, where his mother wouldn’t allow him in the kitchen because he was a boy.
He told Newsweek: “She had a strong opinion about that stereotype. I was always trying to find my way back to the kitchen and make something like an omelette or fried rice, just basic stuff.”
It was only at college in the U.S. that he had the freedom to learn how to cook and during the lockdown he began sharing videos on his account @saigonspringroll.
But, like Thor-sounding Heal, Phan also occupies his own space on the site because, after realizing many of his followers were in Vietnam, he began uploading two versions of his videos, in both English and Vietnamese.
This strategy allowed him to cater to a wider audience, and he now has 1.8 million followers, while still studying at American University in Washington for his MA in business analytics.
Faith Blumberger, Head of Talent at Redpill, a U.K.-based influencer marketing agency, explained to Newsweek that this is in part why so many home chefs have developed such a following—creators are easily able to “find their own audience, find their own niche.”
Instead of Instagram’s “cookie-cutter template” of “white able-bodied people with curated feeds”, Blumberger states that TikTok gives those of “different ages, races, religions and cultures” an equal platform.
“If you can see yourself in someone you are much more likely to connect with their content.”
Blumberger explained that TikTok is becoming the go-to app for recipes because it “makes cooking more accessible” due to “bite-sized easy to follow formats.”
TikTok also makes it easy to browse other food content because of its “For You” page.
The app’s algorithm means that it will show users videos they might enjoy based on footage they have watched in the past.
As a result, with the right video, anyone could go viral, and some home chefs have even found their following unintentionally.
Gabrielle Mir-Hosseini, 30, told Newsweek that the story behind her account @cookingmummi “is quite funny actually, it was a complete accident.”
At the end of 2019, she was asked by friends for her mac and cheese recipe, so she would make them a how-to video using TikTok.
She couldn’t work out how to save the footage so just uploaded it instead.
“The next day, I had lots of views and followers,” she said. “From there people commented and asked for more videos and it’s now turned into a bit of a thing.”
Mir-Hosseini’s follower-count snowballed to 103,500 during 2020, but her primary focus is her full-time job as a business management consultant.
However, the app has also been a savior for many who were unemployed as a result of pandemic job-cuts.
Michelin-trained chef Poppy O’Toole, known online as @poppycooks, was let go from her job at a London private members’ club back in March 2020.
She explained to Newsweek: “All I’ve ever done is cook, I don’t have any training in anything else, I can’t help people that much but I can help people make a better meal.”
She decided to put some cooking videos on TikTok because it was “kind of anonymous” and she didn’t want to be “embarrassed” in front of people she knew on Instagram.
Her account initially gained views when she recreated McDonalds hash brown in April 2020.
However, after that attention died down she did notice that her videos using potatoes were still very successful so in November 2020, when the U.K. went into a second lockdown, O’Toole decided to make a “25 days of potato recipes” series.
She said: “On one of the nights I went to be with 200,000 followers and woke up with a million.”
She now has over 1.5 million followers, and has surpassed 19.3 million likes—her cookbook, ‘Poppy Cooks: The Food You Need’, goes on sale in September.
But perhaps this success may not have been as easy pre-pandemic.
Tom Jackson, creative director at Twisted, a company who make food social media videos, told Newsweek: “You can’t mention TikTok and its success without mentioning the pandemic and the fact that everyone was moving online.
“I think that has been a huge reason why it has been so successful, everyone turned to their phone.”
He also explained that before quarantine TikTok was largely popular with a younger audience but the pandemic has opened up the app’s reach.
He said: “What has been really interesting during the pandemic is that all demographics seem to be really engaging with this platform in particular.
“It’s really spoken to the human, organic, authentic nature of someone picking up their phone, pressing a few buttons and just publishing something.”
Update 06/25/2021, 4:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to include comment from James Stafford, head of partnerships and community at TikTok.
