The Apprentice made a welcome return to our TV screens last night, with 6.4 million people tuning in to see Lord Sugar fire the first candidate of the series.
This year’s first boardroom casualty was Dan Callaghan. Dan was brought back into the boardroom by Project Manager April Jackson, who also chose to bring in Brett Butler-Smythe.
Dan was fired after Team Connexus failed miserably in the task, bringing home a measly profit of £1.87.
The first task involved buying fish and turning it into profit making lunches. Despite having to throw away stock that had been kept at the wrong temperature, Team Versatile won the task as they haggled on their fish prices. They also made a £200 profit after selling calamari and fish finger sandwiches.
Team Connexus on the other hand were plagued with issues from the start. Having focussed on the quality of their fish, they spent more money on their produce, leaving them to charge £9 for a tuna nicoise salad! They also struggled to make their target of 300 fish cakes, managing only 89 and in the process, they missed the lunch time rush.
Revealing his final decision, Lord Sugar said: “Part and parcel of the criteria of the winner is they’ve got to be a bit of a jack of all trades, they’ve got to be able to dirty their hands, go out and sell, market things and Dan, you’ve failed on one of the things already in that you can’t sell and you say you can’t sell”.
“Brett, I can understand why you took on the task of cooking the stuff. What I’m struggling to understand is having had experience in watching – albeit many, many years ago – how a fish restaurant operated, that you didn’t do a better job in the kitchen”.
“But April, you’re the Project Manager here, you’ve got this food blog, this was right up your alley. You let Brett run riot in the kitchen, you relied upon Dan with the numbers and this is not the qualities of the Project Manager and it is for that reason that I am struggling very badly at the moment”.
“But Dan, you say the purchasing is all down to me and you were the only one that didn’t sell anything…Dan You’re Fired.”
The Apprentice returns to our screens tonight at 9pm on BBC1 where the remaining candidates must create and market a new shampoo brand.