GBBO winner John Whaite announces ‘painful decision’ to close his bakery due to a ‘relentless workload’ – and says being run over in a near-fatal car accident was a ‘frightening physical jolt’ that forced him to stop

Former Great British Bake Off winner John Whaite has announced the closure of his Lancashire bakery after struggling with a ‘relentless workload’ and the aftermath of a near-fatal car accident.  

Whaite and his husband Paul Atkins opened the Ruff Puff Bakehouse at Cedar Farm in rural Ormskirk last year, but the pair will now channel their energies into a pre-existing online business, Ruff Puff Brownies. 

Taking to Instagram on Monday, the talented baker, 36, said the decision to close the Bakehouse had been ‘painful’ and admitted both he and Atkins had underestimated how much work was involved in the day-to-day running of a customer-facing shop.    

He wrote: ‘This has been a painful decision, but after a great deal of reflection, we’ve decided to close the Bakehouse and refocus our energy on Ruff Puff brownies.

‘Over the past six months, the pressure of running a bricks-and-mortar bakery has steadily intensified.

‘The workload was relentless, the margins unforgiving, and the emotional toll heavier than we’d allowed ourselves to admit.’ 

Whaite also admitted his hospitalisation after a recent car accident made him confront his own mortality and accept that he was struggling to cope.

He added: ‘More recently being knocked over by a car brought everything into sharp focus.

‘It was a frightening, physical jolt that forced me to stop – quite literally – and confront the reality that I had been running on empty, pushing to hard, and holding too much together.’

Whaite was rushed to hospital following the incident, with doctors later telling him his 16 stone weight and muscle mass had saved his life. 

The former Bake Off star will now return to his online brownie business after temporarily shutting the website down to establish the Cedar Farm Bakehouse. 

Ruff Puff Brownies currently remains inactive, with a homepage message informing visitors that the site is ‘taking a little break’ until 2026. 

He said: ‘Over the coming months, I’ll be taking a proper step back to rest and recover. This pause is necessary, it gives me the space to reset, to protect my health, and to rebuild with intention rather than urgency. 

‘Ruff Puff Brownies will relaunch in the autumn, refreshed, refined, and centred around a model that makes sense – one that allows us to focus on what we do best: making exceptional brownies and sending them out across the UK.’  

Confirming his car accident in January, Whaite told Instagram followers:  ‘Last night I got run over (seriously). 

‘I rolled up the bonnet damaging it and the windscreen, before splatting onto the road and crawling to the pavement where some angel of a human threw his coat around me and waited with me for an ambulance.

‘The doctors said “thank god you’re 16 stone of muscle because it could have been fatal”. 

‘Moral of the story – build strong muscle and core strength, and don’t wear black while crossing the road in the dark when an idiot comes speeding without looking…’

‘I’ve been scanned and poked and prodded and I’m ok. Still gay though.’

He later added: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, in my last post I said “speeding”. I used the term figuratively rather than literally.

‘I meant: It was sudden and shocking. I don’t know what speed the driver was going. But it was enough to skittle me up onto his windscreen and down onto the floor.’