Hey everyone,
Today's review will be the 2nd episode of The Apprentice 2023. So far we have lost one candidate who was fired last week and in this episode we are due to lose another.
For the task, the remaining candidates went to visit Hu Tong, which a famous restaurant at The Shard in London and they had to recreate the famous Bao steamed bun which is usually served with a savoury filling. In the boys team, it was Bradley who put himself forward as the project manager, explaining that this isn't his industry but he'd be happy to take lead, with Rochelle, Victoria and Megan from the girls all wanting to represent the girls, and Megan being voted in as project manager for her team. The boys decided that they would choose a filling that included meat, with Reece adding that they should go for a flavour that they had tried, so that they weren't having to experiment too much with different flavours. In the girls team, Dani suggested something vegan or vegetarian, with Rochelle adding that fish could be a good idea, and they all agreed that fish was going to be the main ingredient.
During the boys' morning meeting, Bradley said that he wanted Reece, Avi, Mark and Gregory to be the kitchen team, with Kevin as their sub team leader. Kevin explained to Bradley that he is an accountant and didn't feel comfortable being in the kitchen when his skills could have been used elsewhere. Reece continued to explain that whe it came to the task, it was important to work out the prices first, and then you know how to budget for the different ingredients that you need. In terms of the corporate client, Bradley said to his mini team that he was going to take the lead, asking the other boys not to talk straightaway, and they pitched to a kids luggage brand who were celebrating with a 16th birthday party after the release of a new dinosaur (or a dragon as I referred to in the video review I did for this episode!).
For the girls team, they were discussing ingredients first, with sub team leader Rochelle explaining to Dani, Shannon and Victoria that she loves cooking and is good at working out flavours. The only downside to this particular method is that they didn't focus on the costs or the quantity of ingredients (and Baroness Brady actually reminded them that they had to submit their order before the kitchen closed). They weren't able to work out the right figures for ingredients that they needed, so ended up ordering 3 bags less of the pastry than they initially set out to use - making it impossible for them to reach their target of 400 bao buns! The brand that they were creating a design for was a golf swingers venue who were looking for something classy and quite 'Instagrammable' (as Megan referred to it), adding that the bao buns could 'potentially be the new trend'. Initially they asked for £9 for each bao bun and then reduced their price down by a few pounds, still accepting a great deal! Back in the kitchen, Shannon said that they needed to keep the flavours simple, and the flavours passed the taste test by Victoria who said that they were lovely. Victoria explained to project manager Megan that they intended to create 400 bao buns but they ordered the wrong amount of pastry and were only probably going to be able to make 70. In the end, they did make 128, but would have created a lot more if they had the right figures calculated.
Back to the boys team, and pasty making with Avi. He seemed to be the only guy who was rolling pastry for the bao buns, and because he was rolling them too thin, the first batch exploded when they put them in to set, so they had to re-make a lot of them. Sohail said that he was worried about the corporate order and Joe began helping Bradley make the dinosaur cakes as that became the priority in the task. When going back to present the cakes to the luxury brand, the buyer didn't seem totally pleased with the products, but did explain that they followed the brief, and Joe jumped in to say 'parents would rather buy their 4 year old's work rather than Picasso' and that managed to changed the mind of the buyer who agreed that the target market would be aimed towards the younger audience, and he said that he loved the vibe, the brand and the flavour of the cake too. Simba also said that there were only 48 as the other cakes didn't 'pass quality control' - which meant that they only had 48 bao buns that did't blow up in the machine. During their sales in the market, they had priced 2 bao buns for £8.50 but Tim added that they should have added extra onto the price for extra toppings, sauces or anything else, as they were giving away these extra additionals for free.
When the girls took their bao buns to the market, Dani and Victoria saw a stand selling 2 bao buns for £9, so decided to sell their 2 bao buns for £9.50, also charging extra for extra toppings or sauces. Dani was selling some of the bao buns to potential customers who were walking past, and she said 'I don't even like fish, but I like these' and managed to bring in a few extra sales, with some of the members of the public coming back after a quick chat with the girls at the stand.
Back in the boardroom before the results were revealed, Shannon said that she wanted to leave the process as she didn't feel that the environment was for her, and she immediately left. For the boys total, they spent just over £166, made £765.40 in sales, giving them a profit of just over £500. For the girls total, they spent £220.40, made £975 from sales, giving them a grand total of £754.60 in profit, meaning that the girls won this weeks challenge (and the result was 1-1 in terms of projects won by each team). As they won the challenge, the girls were sent to a luxury Chinese fine dining evening with drinks and food! PM Bradley brought back Avi and Kevin to the boardroom for separate reasons, blaming Avi for the bad rolling of the pastry, and he probably brought Kevin in as he was a poor sub-team leader, or that he was complaining about the role that Bradley gave him earlier on in the day. Kevin was fired and was the 3rd candidate to leave the process, meaning that only 15 candidates were now left in the process.
Click here for my video review
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