The setting for this week's task announcement is Tate Britain, justified on the ground that Sir Henry Tate made his money from sugar and the task involves designing a range of desserts. I'm not sure using these grandiose settings is a good idea seen as they tend to make Lord Siralan look even more tiny than he actually is. Lord Siralan has decided that because there was some "argie-bargie" in team Tenacity, he is going to move Daniel to team Summit and Sanjay to Tenacity. If he was so keen to avoid "argie-bargie" he should probably have separated Mark and Daniel a few weeks back. He also decides that Katie will lead team Tenacity, because she wants to open a restaurant, and Roisin will lead Summit because she plans to launch a range of ready meals.
Sanjay takes the opportunity of the move to immediately slag off Bianca for always covering her back. Personally, I would say Bianca's tendency to suddenly say something incredibly stupid like "you're our last hope" or "you can have exclusivity for the whole of Westminster" is her worst quality, but to each their own. Sanjay has an idea for cheesecakes themed around tea. Roisin suggests the name "Tea cakes" which would be great if it didn't already exist. How about theming the around oranges you could call them "Jaffa cakes".
Over at team Tenacity, Katie has decided to take charge of designing the product, while Mark and Sanjay handle the branding. This sounds sensible, more than one Project Manager has come unstuck because they let some idiot ruin the product. Unfortunately, it turns out Katie's business proposal is to set up a restaurant that only serves healthy food, not particularly compatible with designing a product made almost entirely out of sugar and fat.
Meanwhile, Roisin decides she should be in charge of branding and wants to take Bianca with her. Solomon argues that he should be on the branding team because he know nothing about food. Roisin thinks he doesn't know about branding either, but when he says he designed the board game box a few weeks back she caves. In the car, we discover that Solomon can't hear the difference between 'camomile' and 'caramel'. Probably best kept out of the kitchen.
Katie is keen to add unusual flavours to her range of trifles, unfortunately she turns out to be an aspiring restaurateur who has never eaten food before. A Michelin starred chef advises her not to go too weird. Katie takes this on board, before dumping a tablespoon of saffron, the world's most expensive ingredient, into the trifle.
Not so much a hint as a Chinese burn
Sanjay is keen to use the word "trifle" in the name of the product, and suggests "a trifle nice" and "a trifle good" both of which sound dangerously accurate. They finally settle on "a trifle different" which is better, but combined with packaging the looks like someone has thrown up on a table cloth.
Over at Tenacity, Daniel is out of his comfort zone, having been taken for a tea tasting session and been confronted with oolong tea. Daniel, now treating everything as a conspiracy to make him look unsophisticated and stupid, claims that oolong doesn't taste like tea. He then does himself no favours by struggling to find a way to get egg into a mixer. The branding team are doing a better job, with a relatively subtle label and the name "tea pot". Why is this team so determined to use a name for something that already exists?
Daniel is confused by tea...
...and struggles with a food mixer
Before the teams pitch to the retailers, they are sent to do some market research, by offering samples in super markets. As it's too late to do anything about any of this stuff, this is mostly so members of the public can criticise the team's products to their face. In fact, the feedback is mostly quite positive, though a few customers don't like the saffron trifle as it tastes savoury. A side effect of the research session is that Daniel and Solomon get stuck in traffic and won't make the first pitch. Roisin and Bianca are remarkably okay with this for some reason.
Roisin and Bianca some how manage to get through a pitch without Daniel or Solomon's help. But they are told that the tea is masked by the other strong flavours. Katie pitches solo and the representative of Asda have more or less the same reaction to her trifles as the public, two out of three are fine but the saffron is horrible. Karen Brady, somehow interprets this two out of three success as total failure and complains about Katie's weird ingredients.
Daniel and Solomon arrive in time for Summit's second pitch, to Waitrose. Roisin is very keen that they should say absolutely nothing unless it adds value to the presentation. Which is a not very subtle hint for the pair of them to keep their trap's shut. But Daniel hasn't gotten this far by understanding coded language and decides to start banging on about liking the cheesecake even though he isn't a tea drinker. He reckons Roisin's pitch is boring, she thinks he talks for the sake of it. Both statements are more or less true.
Either a crack sales team or a sales team on crack
Roisin is pleased
Mark, meanwhile, is trying to manoeuvre himself ahead of Sanjay, pointing out to Katie, that Sanjay was brought into the boardroom because of his inability to sell. Katie tells Solomon that he can "lead" the pitch. Which sounds good, but is technically a demotion given he was going to be delivering the entire pitch solo. The reaction to the second pitch is more or less the same as the first. They don't like the branding or the amount of saffron.
Roisin has agreed that Solomon is allowed to talk in the next pitch as long as he keeps it snappy. Solomon agress, but it ends up being less snappy and more dribbly and gummy. Despite this, Tesco seem to like the pitch. Solomon thinks one of the panel winked at him. hard to tell if this is an endorsement of the product or Solomon himself.
Mark is supremely confident going in, but this is television and pride comes before an inevitable massive humiliation. In the Tesco presentation Mark chokes, pretty much literally. He develops a nervous cough that kicks in every half sentence. It's a good thing one of the panel offers him water or we might have our first Apprentice fatality. Ironically, Sanjay ends up covering for him while Mark coughs out an apology.
Mark feels the hand of death
Back in the boardroom Lord Siralan notes the name and flavours of Team Summit's desserts and comments that they have made a chocolate teapot. This is uncharacteristically original for Lord Siralan, his writers must have been quick of the mark this week.
Lord Siralan is less than impressed by Roisin business speak about grazing consumers and when she tries to claim Solomon and Daniel were more of a hindrance than a help, Nick sticks up for Daniel. Apparently, the panel liked him.
Karen rats out Sanjay for slagging off Bianca behind her back. He also gets in trouble for glossing over (for which read lying about) their negative feedback. Lord Siralan thinks he should have mentioned it so they could pre-empt it in the pitch. Mark also owns up to choking, both figuratively and literally, for which he is entitled to some credit. Okay it is the first thing any other member of the team would have brought up, but that wouldn't have stopped James from trying to lie about it, so we can at least credit him with basic human intelligence which is a compliment in this process.
Summit win with 25,500 orders to Tenacity's 13,500. This is largely thanks to Tesco who thought their desserts were wonderful and ordered 20,000. This is Tesco whose CEO recently quit and whose share price is plummeting. It would be a bit strong to blame entirely on Summit's cheesecakes, but I think we can see the link there. The team are sent off to a macaroon and martini party on James Bond's yacht. I can understand the martinis, but why macaroons? I'm not a big Bond fan, did he have a macaroon with a concealed laser, or one that unfolded into a portable helicopter or something?
Back with team Summit. Mark blames the product, Katie blames the branding and Sanjay blames the branding but claims it's all Mark's fault, though Karen contradicts that and dumps it back on him. There isn't a great deal to talk about here. The saffron trifle was horrible, but the other two were fine. The branding was a bit crap and they sold less than the other team but not so few that it's actively embarrassing.
Lord Siralan decides this is all about the business plan. Katie's plan to open a restaurant could be in trouble seen as she apparently has no sense of taste. This may not be a problem, however, as she only plans to serve healthy food. Lord Siralan dismisses her experience as a waitress by commenting that he has eaten at McDonalds, which is a bit like me dismissing his property company by saying I live in a house. In the end Lord Siralan decides Katie's business proposal is too small scale and he doesn't want to be a sole trader. Surprisingly, Katie is fired. But she gets a "with regret" and even a "good luck" from Karen, so that's nice.
Sanjay plans to set up a social networking website and to make money from advertising. He comes under heavy fire, not from Lord Siralan, but from Mark who thinks he can't possibly make any money from this. Sanjay claims to have five revenue streams, but he can't get past the first without Mark cutting him off. Mark reckons he can make £1 million in a year and challenges Sanjay to match it. Sanjay says he will make £1.1 million in five years. It doesn't really tax anyone's maths skills to work out that this is much worse. Lord Siralan has no confidence in Sanjay's website and so he's fired as well.
Mark begs for a last chance to speak but doesn't get one. In the end Lord Siralan gives him "one last chance" with the kind of weariness that suggests Mark has only survived because he's tired out his firing finger.
There's that hand of death again
Back at the house the consensus is that Katie will probably be back and possibly Mark as well. When Mark appears, alone, Roisin is in such a state of denial she actually checks the hall in case she's hiding.
Yes, Katie really has gone
NEXT TIME: It's the attack of the hideous, bloated, dribbling, egomaniacal bullies. Or the interview round. Claude Litner is back and thinks someone is a bloody disgrace, possibly himself. There's no sign of Margaret Montford, but is that Ricky "the fitness" Martin?
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