Glen Girardin has no need for a lazy dog.
He doesn’t want a sleepy cat or a noisy duck either. Instead, he’s looking for a dragon to help him bake the bread. The owner of European Bakery on Simpson Street, Girardin was in front of producers for CBC’s Dragons’ Den Saturday afternoon as they were in Thunder Bay to hear pitches for next season. While he has a loyal customer base locally, with some dough from the dragons Girardin thinks he could branch out.
“Maybe take my company national or international, who knows,” he said.
Armed with traditional recipes, Girardin said he’s got a great product. Investment from the dragons would help develop a mechanization process to make more of it quickly. It’s the reason he would want help from dragon Jim Treliving, who put together the Boston Pizza franchise. Or Kevin O’Leary.
“That O’Leary guy, he kinda cracks me up,” Girardin said. “I like his sense of humour.”
While he couldn’t discuss specifics, associate producer Matt Faulknor said there were some great ideas coming from Thunder Bay on Saturday.
“Everything from beauty products to barrel crushers,” he said. “Definitely I think you’ll be seeing at least one or two pitchers from Thunder Bay today in the den.”
Getting out of bigger cities, producers get a chance to hear ideas they wouldn’t see anywhere else. Teams have been busy coast-to-coast hearing ideas for next season. After they hear thousands of pitches, the producers get together and try to sell the ideas they’ve collected to each other to see who will head into the den. They hear everything from successful businesses looking for a leg-up to ideas just getting off the ground.
“To stuff that’s not much more than a big dream and a great story,” he said.
