“It’s a family thing” say Sinead and Pascal who have ran Jinny’s Bakery and Tea Rooms for almost 20 years
SINEAD and Pascal Gillard craft entirely natural and totally delicious bakery ranges.
Their business, Jinny’s Bakery, epitomises the achievements of this hardworking husband and wife team who, together with their bakery crew, have carefully and ambitiously built a business that by any standard is impressive.
For every one of their 16 years in business they have achieved an increase in sales year on year and now employ eight people in their bakery and another seven in their tearooms.
Jinny’s Bakery was established by Sinead McGuire in late 2003 as a small bread making business in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim. Week one saw the production of just 16 loaves under the Jinny’s Bakery brand (Sinead’s nickname). From that very modest first week, the business currently now produces over 6,000 loaves a week distributed to retailers and hospitality businesses throughout Ireland. In 2007, Sinead was joined in the business by her husband Pascal Gillard.
Hailed by McKenna’s Guides as one of the “very few distinctive and creative local bakeries in Ireland”, the company tagline is: ‘It’s a family thing’.
Jinny’s combine the best qualities of an authentic bakery, nostalgia and the traditions of slow food. It also embraces the key drivers in food trends in health and wellbeing. The theme and brand promise of the Jinny’s Bakery product range is wholesomeness, a strong health emphasis, while maintaining superior taste and texture.
2019 was a defining year for the business as it underwent a rebrand and launched an exciting range of convenient bread mixes (restaurant-quality Irish stout bread in four easy steps, a Soda bread mix, a Porridge Oat bread mix and Sophie’s scone mix), Crunchy sourdough croutons and Grace’s handmade multi-seed classic granola.
With high impact packaging and great results when baked, the range has been very well received in the market. People all over the world can now enjoys Jinny’s breads and scones in the comfort of their own home.
Jinny’s handmade products are made in small batches from scratch and, unlike most other bakeries of scale, no premixes are used. The best quality ingredients are used such as local freerange eggs, fresh buttermilk and Odlums flour. They also use a French flour for their sourdough baguttes and a German rye flour for their sourdough starter.
Jinny’s use of rapeseed oil in the brown breads instead of margarine. This gives superior health benefits and is prominently highlighted on the product packaging and through social media and public relations actions. This bread is also supplied to Sligo University Hospital. Very recently Jinny’ s won a contract with Supermacs to supply their ciabatta rolls to every Super Subs outlet in Ireland.
Breads are sold to leading hotels and restaurants throughout Ireland. Granola is also supplied to prestigious hotels. It is used for corporate breakfast meetings and conferences in the Sherarton Hotel and is also sold to The Hodson Bay, The Galway Bay, The Sheraton Athlone, Lough Allen Hotel and Lough Rynn and Kilronan Castle.
Jinny’s Bakery in Drumshanbo is open from 9.30am to 4pm, from Thursday to Sunday.