Make a pudding, brand a pudding, sell a pudding; it’s as easy as pie, right? Last night’s episode proved otherwise. The two teams (we’ve honestly lost track of which is Tenacity and which is Summit, and at this late stage it doesn’t really matter) competed to pitch and sell three desserts to Tesco, Waitrose and Asda.
Katie Bulmer-Cooke headed-up Team A, lets call them, and while her saffron trifle left a bad taste in the mouths of the supermarkets, the team did manage to flog 13,500 of their other unusually-flavoured desserts to Asda. Team B, led by the capable hands of Roisin Hogan managed to shift an order of 5,500 of their tea-flavoured cheesecakes from Waitrose and a further 20,000 from Tesco. Sold like hotcakes, they did.
With only three team members remaining, Bulmer-Cooke’s entire entourage were brought back to the board room. Lord Sugar took the opportunity to weed out two no-hopers; Bulmer-Cooke and Sanjay Sood-Smith were turfed due to the lack of confidence Lord Sugar had in their business plans. Bulmer-Cooke, with her background in health and fitness, proposed opening a healthy restaurant. Despite being “Miss Common Sense” and “a good organiser”, Lord Sugar “honestly cannot see how a restaurant business starting from scratch with a very niche market is going to work”.
Sood-Smith – who planned a social networking website with a focus on fitness – was the next candidate in the firing line, despite reassurances that his business would make over £1m in five years. With his background in banking, Lord Sugar saw Sood-Smith’s idea as nothing more than a whim. “You are an intelligent and clever fellow, no question of it,” Lord Sugar said. However, it wasn’t enough, so it was bye-bye Sanjay!
Next week, the five remaining candidates – Wright, Hogan, Solomon Akhtar, Daniel Lassman and Bianca Miller – will face gruelling interviews. Even former winner Ricky Martin (no, not that Ricky Martin) will join in on the grilling. While only two of the remaining contestants are female – Bianca Miller and Hogan – they are the best of the bunch. So our money is on yet another female Apprentice this year. 
