Anyone who remembers the brilliant film The Graduate will recall that the advice given to young buck Dustin Hoffman by the older men is to “get into plastics”. Lord Sugar told this lot to "corner condiments".
He explained that that this was a £13 million per day market and that there is serious brass in the old branston. Anyway the teams. Katy shifted into the boys camp, Phoenix and Duane and Nick moved into team Sterling with the remaining girls. The first thing to say is that designing, producing, packaging and pitching new pickle in a crowded market is a big challenge. The skills are considerable and at last the show give some idea of what’s needed and these products don’t just pour themselves out of a big computer. Let’s put aside the fact that they got foreign words wrong and put some dull pictures on their product but this was really about the ability to make a product to the spec needed, and get it to market. The first issue is that the Phoenix under Katie’s management chose good old table ketchup but made it slightly hotter with a more Italian feel. Phoenix decided to go more exotic within a pineapple and chilli relish. Jane was on the Phoenix team and sat trucullently tough most of the task because she really wanted to be PM. Duane got the vote I think because people felt that Jane didn’t cover herself in glory with the previous week’s task.
Anyway Phoenix got their product to market although originally their test batch which they just in time decided to taste, was hot and stickly enough to be paint the space shuttle. Another production pinch point was the wasting of an entire batch. The fact that Ricky the Shark used to be a biochemist before going of to be an apex predator in recruitment means that he knows about acidity and Ph so he was able to get the stuff to taste Ok. The problem is that lowered output from waste means increased unit costs. Here I think Katy made a good decision. It’s easier to fleece ambling shoppers for the full whack than cemetery faced professional trade buyers, and that’s more or less what they did. I must confess that condiment buying wouldn’t be top of my list at Westfield but then I would probably have guessed they were off the show and cut them some slack.
Cutting slack isn’t Jane’s style. Despite the fact that Duane lead the team well and got their pineapple piccalilli to market in sufficient quantities to win by a country mile. Jane’s support was grudging. Here’s a tip, Jane grace under pressure. If you can’t show grace in victory as you clearly didn’t expect others to notice and gang up on you. I think Jane needs to lift her game in terms of her style and approach or she could get a knife in the back.
Katy was queen bee waiting for the slavering drones to come back to the hive and please her. She didn’t really offer much direction and when the chutney hit the fan she was fairly clueless. She sent hapless sweaty Michael to bag the sales trades. Michael was dead in the water ever since Sugar saw him sweat at the start. Yet, he let himself down despite running what I have checked is a fairly successful business. His negotiation techniques were so weak and obstinate at the same time I even wanted Ashaq “the puppeteer” to take over. Unfortunately he didn’t because he’s all gouth. He had no real help from his friends and Katy played Blonde Assassin back at HQ. Anyway Michael Copp “Copped” it and he probably was out of his depth with so many sharks, blonde assassins and whales around. Like the sauce it’s hotting up. Front runners Rick and Jane.
Performers
Duane looks hardworking and full of ideas if a little bit self obsessed.
Plodders
Where was Gabrielle? Despite wanting to be PM she went AWOL behind a hairnet.
Please stop
The rubbish Dolmio puppet Italian accents and honestly Stephen bellissimo is more “beautiful” with correct spelling.
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