The candidates quickly gathered in the kitchen, Lord Siralan is sending them to "the culinary capital of Scotland" Edinburgh. Which is a bit like calling London "the culinary capital of England", probably true but not very informative. They are going to be jumping on the latest bandwagon, gourmet street food. No team re-shuffling, but Lord Siralan exercises his right to choose the team leaders. Jenna is put in charge of Stirling and Adam in charge of Phoenix. This is rather like giving a go to the kids who no-one picks for their team.
First job, given the team leader picking has been delegated, is to decide on the type of food to make. Adam reckons everything in Scotland is deep fried. Batter doesn't exactly yell out Gourmet. But Adam is more concerned that they avoid Japanese food; it's all raw fish isn't it? Tom thinks that Ramen might be a good way to go, but Adam can't get past raw fish. I mean who eats sushi? Apparently everyone in team Phoenix. Adam is drifting dangerously close to an offensive stereotype of a northerner. Katie suggests Pasta, which Adam goes for because you can just slop stuff on stuff, and the rest of the team breathes a sigh of relief.
"Who eats sushi?"
Tom apparently
Over at Stirling, Jenna is suggesting pies. As someone who has done a bit of baking in my time, I can say that pastry is not easy to work with. Tough to make, tough to bake properly, and you have to shape it properly to put the filling in. This could be an absolutely hilarious idea. Unfortunately, Laura suggests stew, which is like pie without the hilarious bit, spoil sport. Jenna is planning to go all Scottish and grab the tourist market.
The next step is research, so two sub-teams are sent off to a food market, while the rest are packed off on a train to Scotland. Adam puts Katie and Jade on this team because off their background in marketing and Stephen in charge of them because he has testicles, presumably. After much poking around and tasting, the conclusions are pretty clear, don't skimp on expensive ingredients. Quality all the way. The team call Adam who concludes from this that they should use the cheapest ingredients possible. In fact he says cheap so often he starts to sound like a baby bird (Ahahahahahahah! My sides!). Tom is rolling his eyes in desperation, though Adam doesn't notice. He just wonders where the "trolley dolly" is.
The "trolley dolly"! Okay, this is way too much. There is no way that Adam can possibly be a real person. The casual sexism, the disdain for anything vaguely new or foreign and now the archaic language. Adam is a badly written northerner from a 1970s sit-com, there is no other possible explanation.
Back with the sub-teams, they have gotten on later trains and are trying to chose a location to park their gourmet food vans. Nick phones around and picks Parliament square as it has a good tourist foot fall. Katie and, to a lesser extent, Jade want to gamble on a football match. Stephen is sceptical that kind of crowd will want gourmet food, but Katie thinks sheer numbers will guarantee sales. She also says she's happy to take the blame if it goes wrong. This is not so much putting her head in the lions's mouth as covering yourself in gravy, repeatedly kicking the lion in the balls yelling "eat me you lazy yellow f**ker."
Having arrived in Edinburgh the project manager's teams are sent to meet some chefs. But Jenna is worried that people might speak "Scottish language" to them. Can Laura translate? She is from Edinburgh. "Scottish language" seriously?
Adam and team meet with Italian chef Mateo. He gets on board with Adam's meatball suggestion as it feels very Italian and can be made to taste good simply. This is still not enough for Adam who starts asking if they can substitute fresh rosemary for dried. He could also save money on meet by hunting squirrels. Jenna's team seem to be having the opposite problem. There Scottish stew is going to cost £2.50 a portion.
Meanwhile, the marketing teams are trying to come up with a good name. Stephen, Jade and Katie settle on "utterly delicious" because its "simple" the Holy Grail or Apprentice ideas. It's also mundane, completely uninformative and, at the rate Adam's going, potentially in breech of the trades descriptions act. They get him on the phone. But Adam has gotten the chef to let them use his name, so he wants to call it "Mateo's Meatballs." The marketing team compromise on "Utterly Delicious Meatballs," which suggests they may be missing the point somewhat.
Gourmet Quality
With the teams reassembled, they get to work on manufacturing. Stirling seem to be doing a reasonable job, though there is an awful lot of meat. I am slightly concerned the one of the team may have fallen in to the stew, is there time for a head count? I haven't seen much of Gabrielle this week. Back at Phoenix, Adam's balls are getting smaller and smaller. There really is no way to follow that sentence.
Next day dawns and the teams are up early their vans dragged to their starting pitches. Stirling are struggling. Probably because it's first thing in the morning and people have only just had breakfast. This is not necessarily a sign of a failing strategy, though Karen Brady still manages to tut with disdain and Jenna starts panicking early. The team manages to bribe a bagpiper to set up next to the van with the offer of a free lunch. This prompts a highlang fling from Ricky and Laura. They're attracting tourists, but not making many sales.
Phoenix are having more trouble at the football. Adam has marked up his meatballs to £5.99, even though they only cost 47p a portion to make. In spite of this, Katie still doesn't think the customers are being gouged enough and suggests bumping the price up to £7.99. Even Adam thinks this might be pushing it. But it's unlikely to make much difference as the football crowd are loaded up on pies and burgers. Katie, Stephen and Azhar have moved on to their next big plan, convincing a tour bus to let them flog their wares on the top deck. The problem is that they'll have to move the van right across the middle of lunch time. It doesn't matter very much, Adam has managed to shift a few more portions by dropping the price, but kick-off is 12.30, so the massive foot fall has cleared off.
An elite sales force in action
Stirling are having an easier time now there's been a lunch rush. But Jenna is still panicking, they have to flog a lot of portions to cover the cost of ingredients. She takes the chance to berate the sales team of Laura and Ricky for failing to be aggressive enough. Laura thinks she's getting her excuses in early.
Phoenix have moved their van and now their sales team are trying their bus pitch, in costume. Katie is dressed as a pizza which is vaguely related to what they're doing. Unfortunately, with no way to reinforce the costume it looks a bit like a very badly made dress that she's been sick down. Still, it's slightly better than Stephen draped in the Italian flag like he's just won a major sporting event and Azhar in what may be the world's lowest budget superhero costume. The team try their pitch only to horribly embarrass the entire bus. They get off quick and head for the next one, but after climbing a lot of hills get there too late and miss it. With no sales and a fifteen minute wait for the next bus, Adam decides that the tour bus may not be the task winning strategy the team thought.
Parliament square is thinning out and so Stirling also decides to move their van, stopping outside the National gallery. Ricky is roaming around in a kilt, but even this isn't enough to attract customers in the middle of the afternoon. Nick suggests dropping their prices, but Jenna is worried about costs. Karen Brady is sniping from the sidelines about how they have to keep their prices up to cover their costs. She seems to be missing the point that they've already paid for the meat, it's a sunk cost. If they start selling portions for £2 they only lose 50p a portion, instead of £2.50 if they don't sell it at all.
After a last desperate sales surge the teams are back to the boardroom and Lord Siralan has questions. Adam says he chose pork meat balls because it's a cheap meat. "Cheap?!" Lord Siralan snarks. Adam suddenly realises he may have missed the point somewhat and back peddles so quickly he's in danger of tipping over backwards on his bicycle. Suddenly he can't stop banging on about the quality of his meatballs, stopping short of calling them "bootiful" only at the threat of copyright infringement. That said, his profit margin is so massive due to his low costs that there is a serious danger he might win.
But no, Jenna scrapes a win by just £21 and team Stirling are sent off for a Segue race. Not sure if this strictly a prize given that Nick comes off his and almost kills half the team.
At Bridges cafe Adam's loss hasn't dented his arrogance. Everything is everyone else's fault, mostly the marketing team. But dragged back to the boardroom Lord Siralan is keen to talk about Adam's cost cutting. He isn't impressed by the quality of the product, apparently he's seen the same sort of thing on the floor of the elephant enclosure at the Zoo. If that's true either the Elephants are being badly underfed or he's been watching from a very long way away. Adam is keen to distract Lord Siralan by blaming the marketing team for the crappy name. Alas this doesn't reflect well on him either, he should have overruled them. Adam then tries to pin the blame for the Football match and the high prices on them.
Suddenly, Stephen springs into life. Given that he has barely been able to get out a coherent sentence before now this is an impressive performance. Adam should have been able to twig that £5.99 was too much for pasta at a football match, that the name wasn't any good, that the food was too cheap etc etc. All of this is true, but neglects to mention that Stephen endorsed all of this. He even manages to claim that both selling on the tour bus and giving up on the idea were both examples of his business genius. Oh and everything is Azhar's fault because he didn't do anything.
By the end of all this Adam is so worn out he brings Katie and Azhar back to the boardroom with him. Adam is still obnoxiously arrogant. Apparently he would be the perfect partner for Lord Siralan. He doesn't manage anything as outrageous as Baggs the Brand's 'Field of ponies' but that just suggests a lack of imagination. Surely Lord Siralan has to let him go? But no, Azhar puts in a half decent performance while Katie lets herself get tagged with the blame for the football match and the name. Plus this is her third time in the boardroom, so out she goes. Lord Siralan has only had to put up with Adam once, we've had six weeks now, give it time.
Back at the house Stephen is all smiles and claiming to be relieved Adam is back. Adam looks less than convinced as blood pours from the massive gaping wound in his back.
NEXT TIME. The teams are flogging cleaning equipment in the street. Cue Adam and Stephen waving mops in the street.
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