The Apprentice: the task that went down like a dog’s dinner
One of Lord Sugar's former boardroom victims delivers her verdict on episode ten of the latest series of The Apprentice
The candidates have now completed all the tasks in the process and five women remaining standing. Normally this is something I’d be championing. However, there hasn’t been a man in The Apprentice final since 2017 and even then, it was a shared win between Sarah Lynn and James White.
Six whole years and The Apprentice casting team couldn’t find one man worthy of making it to the final? Or perhaps Lord Sugar just prefers it this way, who knows. Either way, it doesn’t really signify much in terms of male entrepreneurship in Britain if not a single male candidate in six years can make it to the final.
Having been an avid fan of the show for many years prior to taking part myself, I can say with full certainty there have been several female candidates undeserving of their place in the final, with male candidates who would have been far better suited, but ultimately, the show is not about seeing the best and most deserving candidates make it to the Final Five. It’s about two being legitimate candidates for the Final and the rest making for great car crash interviews.
To my utmost annoyance, Simba found himself in the firing line this week – and I feel strongly that he would have made a great business partner for Lord Sugar as he demonstrated that he was hard working, creative, conscientious, gracious, and easy to work with. It’s so sad that the preconceived narrative and agenda of the show gets in the way of what should be recognising capable, respectable, hard-working candidates, especially when some candidates remain in the process who clearly should no longer be there.
This week, the candidates were tasked with creating and marketing a new dog food, including branding, packaging, creating a unique dog food recipe and securing orders from corporate buyers.
Team Affinity, led by Project Manager Victoria, went with a gourmet dog food, with the USP being gourmet… like that hasn’t been done before. Rochelle created the recipe, with lamb as the source of protein. It was a ‘Moroccan Lamb Tagine’ style recipe. Victoria and Marnie, who clashed most of the time throughout the task, oversaw the branding, design, packaging, and photoshoot.
Team Apex, led by Megan, went for a healthy, sustainable, worm-based dog food. Megan was in the kitchen in charge of developing the canine cuisine using mainly potatoes, a small number of insects and some gravy. Meanwhile, Dani and Simba worked on, or should I say argued over, the branding, design, photoshoot and packaging. They were both sadly confused by Megan’s directive in the morning briefing to highlight the insect ingredients as a USP while not getting lost in it. This unfortunately created a basic and plain looking branding, called “Pro-Paw”, which Lord Sugar slated in the boardroom calling it “Piss-Paw” – probably one of his better jokes this series, but certainly not one he came up with himself. Lord Sugar actually crosses off his cheesy one-liners from a sheet of paper that sits in front of him after he says each line during the boardroom scenes. Clearly, they are written for him and are definitely not said off the cuff.
During the consumer research, the dog owners frowned upon the branding and the mushy product, not to mention that the dogs didn’t seem to go for it either. Interestingly, the corporate buyers loved the idea of the insect-based food, saying it was the way forward, being more sustainable than meat. However, the buyers felt that Megan’s team had failed to make a great idea saleable. Lord Sugar very bizarrely said that their project was as confused as “a baby on a topless beach” which was extremely inappropriate in my opinion. A comment like that would definitely not have gone down well in a corporate environment.
Team Apex lost, having received zero orders from the buyers. Megan was criticised for giving her branding team unclear instructions and for creating a product that Lord Sugar described as “total garbage”. Simba was fired, not because he was responsible for the failure of the task, but because he was made the scapegoat. Lord Sugar said: “You’re the kind of person people ignore,” after Karren told Lord Sugar before Simba’s firing that he was “a man that no one listens to”. This is not true at all, quite harsh and potentially damaging to his reputation. Simba spoke out throughout the process, even in Mandarin during one episode, which went over quite well in Lord Sugar’s eyes. How quickly he forgets.
Simba put forward his ideas in all the tasks, but in this task in particular, overbearing Dani always spoke over him – and with the time limitations and stress of getting the task done in the allotted time, Simba probably went with many of her ideas as he felt completing the task was more important than getting his own way. Ultimately, Dani steamrolling over him in this task reflected poorly on her and not him. He was simply being a team player and trying to complete the task and have something to show for it.
Dani should have been fired this week instead of Simba, but I think she’ll probably make for a better car crash interview during next week’s grillings with Lord Sugar’s trusted advisors including Karren (for the first time), Claude Littner, Mike Soutar and Linda Plant. I have no doubt this is why they kept her in and prematurely fired Simba.
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