Tricked by a Fake Viral Food Product? You’ve Just Been Snackfished

You’ve heard of “catfishing” – a false online identity adopted by someone who wants to deceive or deceive others. Clear Ketchup is a ‘snack fish’ and Benji is the UK’s number one snack fisherman. Benji’s Instagram account UK Snack Attack features pistachio-flavored Coco Pops, pickle-shaped Haribo, mint Coca-Cola, Pringles ice cream and buttery Oreos.

It all started with rare Fanta. In 2019, Benji and his college roommates enjoyed hunting down imported Fanta flavors and “having a little ritual” when they tasted them. Since then, the computer science student has become obsessed with finding “weird” snacks and posting them on his personal Instagram page. “I realized I should stop harassing my friends by posting treats, so I moved it to my own account,” Benji said.

Benji’s description is very simple – he would go to the store and take photos of new foods. “But then the lockdown happened and it didn’t look good going to the supermarket to handle food,” he said. So instead of touching the food, he started making it. After following a white chocolate Nutella recipe online, Benji started whipping up a different chocolate spread every weekend – something he calls “Spread Saturday” online. Benji is a self-taught photographer who also creates a fake label for his work. But one day, one of the companies he was copying sent him a message that went something like: “Hey, can you tell this isn’t real? We’ve been getting a lot of messages asking to buy this!

So snack fishing was born. “In some ways, I wanted Scamming people online,” Benji admitted. “I’m not going to pretend otherwise.” But on Zoom, Benji was anything but vicious. He is soft-spoken, wears wire-rimmed glasses and a comfortable-looking cardigan. As the world emerged from lockdown, Benji began displaying his snack fish in stores and filming himself pulling them off the shelves. At first, Benji’s friends and family were confused. “Are you okay? Is this a normal thing? But they quickly joined in and when he hit 200,000 followers, his mum and grandma took him out for afternoon tea.

Today, Benji adds disclosures (“These don’t exist!”) to every article to avoid frustrating people and stay on the right side of the multinational conglomerate. He also posted “snack” news about actual upcoming snacks, which have leaked elsewhere around the web, and the brands aren’t too happy about it – some have already sent him cease-and-desist notices.

When Benji comes up with an idea for a new snack, sometimes he’ll completely Photoshop it, but if he thinks it’s possible, he’ll sit down and make it a reality. He munched on Pringles dipped in a milk bar (“which store are they in,” one commenter asked) and munched on a Werther Original chocolate bar. He dreams of one day making his own snack fish recipe, but his “real dream” is to have a company make snack fish a reality. “That’s so cool – I come up with some silly flavor and then suddenly everyone can try it.”

Ultimately, clear ketchup and lemony peanut butter may never exist, and recreational fishing may not make Benji rich or famous—he doesn’t really make any money from his account. However, he actually didn’t mind. “I don’t want it to feel like a job; I love doing it,” he says, noting that his “day is all about numbers,” so making fake food offers a creative outlet. “It’s just a little hobby for me. As long as I can have fun doing it, I’m happy.

This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of Wired UK magazine.