This popular South African cooking couple, who have used social media to platform their relationship and cooking skills, have been nominated again for the DSTV Content Creator Awards.

The couple Matt Howcroft and Tess Saunders, who call themselves Mush Kitchen, are elated to be nominated for the second time.

They combined their love for food and creating content into something sharable with Mzansi and the rest of the world. Mush Kitchen was nominated at last year’s awards and emerged victorious in the Foodie award category.

The DStv Content Creator Awards is coming back for a third year with over 17 categories. The awards aim to celebrate and recognise the excellence of content creators across social media.

Howcroft and Saunders create food content and share videos and pictures on social media.

Saunders, 29, is a trained graphic designer by profession and 26- year-old Howcroft is a chef by profession. The couple met in Vietnam when they were both teaching English, where they subsequently fell in love.

In the beginning of 2022 when they had just moved to Cape Town, Howcroft was studying cooking and Saunders was working in social media. They then decided to make videos which is how Mush Kitchen came along.

While they were still in Cape Town, they noticed how food content videos were grabbing a lot of attention online. Looking at some of the videos made by other creators, they had a thought to also give it a try and see how it will go.

“I was working as a social media manager and I was doing a lot of video creation, at that time food on social media was going off.

“I remember we looked at some of this stuff and thought we can also do that. Matt was a chef and I worked in social media, it was sort of a we may as well try it. If we didn’t do it then we would be doing ourselves an injustice.”

Matt Howcroft holding a Hot Nashville Chicken Burger. Picture: Supplied

Making cooking or food content comes fairly easy to them as both come from food oriented families, they describe their families as living to eat rather than eating to live.

During their time living abroad, the couple always tried out different food and restaurants. To this day they still enjoy indulging in Asian cuisine.

The name Mush came from Howcroft, it was initially a nickname he had given to Saunders. In Vietnam one of Saunders’ students called her Mushroom, which she thought was funny.

Howcroft then started calling her Mush. When they were brainstorming for a name for their social media, Mush Kitchen felt fitting.

Matt Howcroft and Tess Saunders, enjoying a meal together. Picture: Supplied

Their favourite meal to make for celebrating any occasion is carbonara, a pasta dish.

“It’s just become a meal we would always eat whenever we move into a new house or a new country, it’s like our comfort meal.

“Something sad or happy it’s just a nice way to calm us down and reconnect,” says Howcroft.

They both had full time jobs and being content creators started as a hobby. Mush Kitchen then started to gain a lot of following. Shortly after brand deals started rolling in and the money was also coming in at a capacity that was more than what they were earning.

Now they are full time content creators. They create videos on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube.

When they got nominated for the Foodie Awards last year they did not expect to win, while they could not be there to personally accept their award they were happy to find out they had won.

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