The Apprentice (UK Series Five) - Challenges - Week 12: The Final

Week 12: The Final

• Finalists: Kate and Yasmina
• Task: The two remaining finalists have to create, brand and market a new box of chocolates from scratch before presenting them in front of a panel of over 100 business and chocolate experts. They will also each create a 30 second television commercial. 8 previously fired contestants (Ben, Debra, Howard, James, Kimberly, Lorraine, Philip, and Rocky) return to the series to once again form teams in order to help push their final project manager to victory.
• Teams:
  • Kate's team: Kate (Project Manager), Debra, Rocky, Ben and Kimberly. (Watched by Nick)
  • Yasmina's team: Yasmina (Project Manager), Howard, Philip, James and Lorraine. (Watched by Margaret)
• Results:
  • Ignite: Kate and her team quickly chose a romantic theme 'for him, for her, to share..." for their chocolates, which they named 'Intimate' before Debra criticized the name, saying it sounded like feminine sanitary products. Kate changed it to 'Choc d'amour'. They worked with Master Chocolatier Paul A Young of Paul A Young Fine Chocolates to develop a high quality product with flavours including Strawberry & Champagne, Sea-salted Caramel, Passionfruit, and Honey & Lemongrass. Kate's presentation and flavours were praised, but her product was felt to be too expensive for the mass market at £13.
  • Empire: Yasmina initially chose to theme her chocolates towards males, but after negative feedback, they decided on an unconventionally flavoured budget priced box called 'Coco Electric' which they developed with Gerard Coleman of L'Artisan du Chocolat. The design of Yasmina's box, the low price of £6, and the commercial were praised, but the low quality of the product and poor flavours, which included strawberry & basil and chili & popping candy, were strongly criticized.
• Final Decision: In the end, Sir Alan decided that Yasmina was the better candidate as she was not too perfect, robotic, or controlled and thought that she was more of a risk taker and that she would suit his business best. However, Sir Alan had claimed this to be the hardest decision he had ever made on the programme and if compared to another Apprentice winner, Kate would have won the job. But since Yasmina was more willing to take risks, he chose to hire her.
• Runner-Up: Kate, for being "too perfect and robotic", and for pricing the chocolates at a high retail price
• Hired: Yasmina, for being more of a risk taker, and for promoting her chocolates well business-wise, despite the bad quality of the taste of the chocolates
• Notes:
  • The broadcast was moved from its original slot on a Wednesday to the earlier Sunday. This was to avoid competing with a football match due to be shown live on ITV between England & Andorra.
  • Kate was the first person to get as far as the final having only been project manager once during the series. Not including Young Apprentice, the only other occasion that this has happened is with Tom Pellereau in Series 7, who went on to win the series.
• Response: Response to the final decision was mixed: The Mirror stated that "the wrong candidate won." The Times merely noted that "the final, much like this series, was brisk, efficient and quite boring", and in the blogosphere Edwin's Raisin declared it "all a bit much of a muchness in the end: both contestants impeccably competent in their performance of the final task and both fully accepting of the hype that Sir Alan is the fiercest, most successful businessman the world has ever known."