TV show a piece of cake for baker Jimmy

A Galway baker who generated international headlines after being bitten in the face by a giant conger eel earlier this month is set to be back in the limelight again in the coming weeks when his family business features in a new documentary series on RTE television.

Taking Care of Business, which started last night tonight (Thursday) at 8.30pm, features ordinary Irish people who got into extraordinary debt during the Celtic Tiger years and features Grifffin’s Bakery of Shop Street in the third or fourth edition of the series.

Two financial trouble shooters, Sean Dunne and Tommy Murphy, are seen to regularly visit Jimmy Griffin’s premises throughout the show as they attempt to devise a plan to help his business survive in a harsh economic climate.

Filming started at the Galway bakery before Christmas, and Jimmy and his staff gave the programme unprecedented ‘behind the scenes’ access to the day-to-day running of a bakery which has been run by the Griffin family since 1876.

Griffins’ Bakery is one of six family business to feature in the series. It shows how Jimmy bought the business from his parents for €1.5 million in 2008, with little foresight of the massive problems faced by the retail sector in the intervening five years

The programme will show how Jimmy, a master baker, has tried to diversify his business.

Jimmy told the Galway City Tribune this week that he was one of thousands of businesses who applied to take part in Taking Care of Business. Filming took place at the bakery and cafe over a number of months.

He said part of his motivation in taking part in the programme was to show the financial uncertainty and headaches which come with running a small business.

Jimmy is also a scuba diver in his spare time and the story of how he was bitten in the face by a six foot conger eel, during a dive in Connemara, has gone all around the world since it was first published in the Galway City Tribune two weeks ago.

He was diving at 25 metres when the huge creature attacked him in the dark.

A team of plastic surgeons at University Hospital Galway, led by consultant Padraig Regan, managed to rebuild the left side of his face after he was transferred to the city by ambulance.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.