Luisa just can't be bothered this week
No team reshuffling this week, which means that Evolve have been left with just Neil, Luisa and Alex. As they have all had a go already, Lord Siral doesn't care who leads. The task is to design and market a new ready meal, and so Luisa, with her experience in the food industry should be ideal for the job. But after last weeks infighting she doesn't want it, leading two a split between Francesca and Neil that she decides in Neil's favour.
In fact, Luisa is determined to play down her food experience, refusing to go to the factory. Apparently, her only experience is in baking and she knows nothing about savoury food. Francesca is also keen to emphasise her food ignorance, but Neil clearly thinks Luisa is the most ignorant and packs her off to the factory while Luisa works on branding. Neil will be going with Luisa, having decided that branding is more important than product. Alex is no better, he and Myles will be working on the brand while Jordan and Leah will be going to the factory. He justifies sending Leah because, in spite of her lack of food industry experience, he thinks they will be 'nice to her.' I can't decide if this is sexist or just weird.
Francesca is entirely happy at the factory
Alex and Myles pretty quickly fall out over branding ideas. Alex favours a pair of cartoon characters travelling around the world teaching children about regional food. He wants to name these two Pippity and Pop, after the welsh word for Microwave. Myles, prefers a horror theme that he labels 'Deadly Dinners'. They ask a random member of the public, sorry focus group, but she unhelpfully tells them that they're both good ideas. Alex is determined that his idea will win out, convinced that his idea is parent-friendly and educational, but he seems to lose confidence after being unable to explain how a picture of Pippity on a gondola is educational. In the end he gives in and they go with Myles idea.
Actually, once the decision is made, Alex jumps on board with a bit too much enthusiasm. The packaging ends up black, decorated with bats, blood and a skull, displayed on a fade skull background. Nick Hewer points out that skulls are more normally associated with poison though, to be fair, this is probably no more lethal than your average Sainsbury's lasagna.
Appetising
Meanwhile, Evolve have decided on a fusion theme, combining Caribbean chicken with Thai noodles. Unfortunately, it turns out that when Francesca said she couldn't cook she wasn't lying and Luisa, who apparently was, has to dictate a recipe down the phone. Francesca has the assistance of a professional chef, but he doesn't have much to work with as Francesca queries whether it's possible to burn chicken (it is, who knew?) and checks to see if the noodles are done by hurling them at a wall. She's too stressed out to taste anything and the results are not well received by the test audience. Weirdly, the food with skulls on that claims to be made from bat's blood is actually the more appealing of the two.
How to cook wall noodles
Best not to look
Not that Luisa and Neil care about this, they're far too busy having a love-in and creeping out a designer. The end result, a rainbow patterned package labelled 'Oh my Pow' claims to be 'powerful food for people with powerful minds'. Powerful enough to avoid ready meals made by someone who thinks the wall is a cooking utensil we hope.
We creeped out the designer...
High five!
The next day the teams are given the chance to test their food on a focus group. Not that there's much point as they won't be able to make any changes. Maybe the idea is to make them shit themselves before the big presentations? A class of primary school kids are highly enthusiastic about Deadly Dinners, but the parents are less keen. You'd think they'd be okay one they saw the ingredients list on the side, which admits that it isn't really made of bats blood. Maybe two message were confusing and the parents don't know which to believe. Though bats blood would probably be preferable for the members of Evolve's focus group. Francesca is left desperately searching for positive feedback while Luisa disparages her cooking to her face.
Oh my Pow!
The teams are dispatched to three retailers that Lord Siral has "laid on" again. Myles is presenting first for team Morse. He's been pretty reliable in the past, but the steady popping sound Alex is making as he punches a fork through the top of the packaging proves a bit distracting. Though not quite as distracting as when Alex interrupts to ask him how to operate a microwave. Unfortunately for the team, the people of Asda seem as put off by the skulls as the focus group parents.
Asda seal of approval
Leah delivers the second presentation. Well I say "delivers", what she actually does is try to bark it out between interruptions by the rest of the team. Jordan gives presentation number three, and does a highly professional job, emphasising the dual marketing strategy of using the skulls to attract kids while emphasising the health details on the side. The whole team agrees that this was the best presentation of the day.
Shut up Leah!
Over at Evolve, Neil has the opposite problem. The packaging is fine, but the food tastes of nothing. Eventually Neil hits on the idea of promising to add flavour if they make a big enough order. This could be a whole new marketing strategy for food. You could have a basic version with just texture, or the 'Extra special' range which actually tastes of something.
Back in the boardroom, Francesca comes in for heavy criticism for not tasting the food and not putting in any flavour, but Luisa also gets some flak for having refused to go to the factory when it was obvious she knew the most about cooking. But the amount of time spent on Evolve makes the outcome obvious. The team that gets the most criticism before the results are read out is always the winner, because there's no chance to moan at them afterwards.
And so it proves to be. Morrisons don't order anything from anyone, possibly because they're just short of cash. Occado order 300 from Evolve and 1000 from Morse, thanks to Jordan's presentation. But Asda swing things by ordering 2500 Pow, on condition that they add some flavour, while ordering nothing from Morse. According to Nick, they thought the product was "just plain wrong," which makes it sound as if it were a moral judgement. Maybe the got confused by Myles dodgy delivery and thought they were actually planning to poison children?
Evolve are sent off to raise some cars while Morse head to the Cafe, where Alex makes it plain to all and sundry that he thinks this is entirely Myles' fault. Back in the boardroom he loses no time in communicating the same to Lord Siral and even insists that he will only bring back Myles into the boardroom. Lord Siral isn't having any of that, so Alex brings back Leah, because her presentation wasn't as good as Jordans. Though, to be fair, she didn't actually deliver much of it, what with the interruptions.
Alex blames everything on Myles, justifying his decision to follow Myles lead by arguing that, as Myles is a parent, he should have a better idea of what children like. Myles still thinks the basic idea is solid, but concedes the execution wasn't up to much. He has to rely on his past record to save him. Leah gets a bit of flak for not doing much for weeks on it, but isn't really of any great interest. But Lord Siral is concerned that Alex has gone through two different businesses and is now starting up a third. He thinks Alex should stick to one idea. Because he didn't start out in computers and move on to property or anything.
Myles keeps calm
It comes down to a battle between Myles past success and Alex's.. eyebrows? And the fact that he didn't come up with Deadly Dinners, I suppose. But this isn't enough to save him. He gets a "with regret" but Alex is gone. He doesn't look happy, but then he only ever looks happy when pretending to be a Dictator or a pervert.
Alex puts a brave, if terrifying, face on it
Next Time: The teams are "invited to smell what sells" again, setting up small business's in a day. Sales, incidentally, smell like aniseed with a touch of cinnamon and a whiff of desperation.
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