The Apprentice: For goodness’ hake – S16, ep 4

By Anna Jordan on Small Business UK - Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Warning: spoilers ahead

An invitation to the National Maritime Museum suggests that something nautical is going down in this week’s episode of The Apprentice – or ‘something watery’ as Nick shrewdly deduces.

One half of each team will be heading to Cornwall to catch fish and the other will be selling stock to corporate clients. The former will cook the recipes and sell them at Truro Farmers Market and the latter will prepare the fish to be sold to restaurants and cafés in London.

To even things up, Alex is moved over to Team Infinity.

The teams

Team Infinity + Karren: Alex (project manager), Kathryn, Akshay, Stephanie, Amy and Sophie

Team Diverse + Tim: Harpreet (project manager), Akeem, Brittany, Aaron, Nick and Francesca

Team Infinity agree on brown crab as their Catch of the Day to be transformed into a crab cake burger.

Over at Team Diverse, the catch is pollock. Aaron says he’ll put his heart and ‘sole’ into it. Spoiler: this is not the sole ‘sole’ joke in this episode. I’m looking at you, Lord Sugar.

Known as early risers, fishermen don’t wait for any alarm clock. It’s no different for the candidates, who are doing a 3am start.

Yes, Chef!

The selling trios each go to a high-end hotel to flog fish to the chefs. Here are the vital stats.

Team Diverse
Price: 9kg of Dover sole at £25 per kilo and 10kg of pollock at £8.50 a kilo
Delivery time: By 10am the next day

Team Infinity
Price: 8-9kg of monkfish at £25.50 per kilo and 10kg of plaice at £7.50 a kilo
Delivery time: Who knows?

It’s a universal truth that whenever a bassoon starts playing in the background, there’s trouble afoot. Team Infinity realise they’ve forgotten to offer the Catch of the Day – and their teammates in Cornwall have around 70kg of it. ‘We have so much crab, you wouldn’t believe,’ says sub team leader, Amy.

The route map veers even further off course as crab arancini balls are agreed on as a more cost-effective alternative to burgers. Infinity only need 25kg of crab for the arancini recipe.  

Harpreet, Akeem and Brittany are at the recipe creation station for Team Diverse, deciding to spend more on a special taco which will sell at the market with a £5.50 mark-up at £7.95.

Meanwhile the arancini balls lack any kind of signature quality, placed on rocket and topped with some garlic mayo, accompanied by zero sides and zero upselling opportunities. I wish I could say something more entertaining, but it’s just really boring. It’s a £5.63 mark-up per portion too.

‘I feel like they had a breakdown in London,’ sighs Steph.

From sea to kitchen to market to fork

Sophie, Amy and Steph and Nick, Aaron and Francesca are down to Cornwall.

Sub team leader Francesca, who is vegan, must lull the fish into a false sense of security as she gets the first catch in their boat. After a slow start, Team Diverse really get their fish on, reeling in catch after catch.

In the kitchen, the team have some tiffs over the quickest way to sequence their mass prep strategy. Cooking arancini, however, is proving to be a low and slow drag all round for Team Infinity. To paraphrase The Supremes: You can’t hurry risotto. No, you just have to wait. They really do, getting to the market later than their rival team.

Truro highlights a case of extremes once again. Footfall is high and service is slow for the fish tacos while there’s not much action over at the arancini stall. In a last-ditch, Team Infinity lower the cost of their dish from £7.99 to £5.

It’s a 2:30pm finish at the farmers market and Steph is not confident about facing Lord Sugar.

Back on-shore

Team Infinity truly get filleted in the boardroom this week. Steph was star salesperson at the market, but Amy subbed herself in to try and prove her selling abilities to Lord Sugar, which he deems an unwise move. With the other half of the team, it’s revealed that £90 was spent on rocket, lemon and mayo compared to £67 spent on crab – the star ingredient. Karren also exposes Alex’s fibs after he tries to wriggle out of the fact that he, Akshay and Kathryn forgot to offer the crab and set a delivery time with the hotel.

So, here are the vital stats again, unveiling this week’s winners.

Team Infinity
Spent: £439.85
Made: £556.41
Profit: £116.56

Team Diverse
Spent: £549.53
Made: £861.95
Profit: £312.42

Diverse become divers as part of their prize: a shark cage experience at SEA LIFE London.

Overall, Alex isn’t taking much responsibility for the howlers he’s made throughout the challenge. However, he acknowledges that a lot of the fault is with his half of the team so selects Akshay (who is in the final three for the third time) and Kathryn to return to the boardroom with him. The rest are tossed back to sea.

‘This is, without a doubt, the worst failure I have ever experienced in this boardroom,’ Lord Sugar says as he scolds the three. ‘I’m so bitterly disappointed.’

Alex is the one that’s leaving, but it honestly had to be. I couldn’t make as solid a case for either of the other two.

Watch the whole episode on BBC iPlayer.

Next week: Gaming

The remaining 11 Apprentice candidates will be making their own computer game before pitching it to leading video game investors. Join us next week for the recap.

Catch up with the rest of the series

The Apprentice: Hardly a cruise for the candidates – series 16 episode 1 review

The Apprentice: Oops, they did it again – S16, ep 2

The Apprentice: Shaken and stirred with plenty of zingers – S16, ep 3

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