Zoe Beresford has become the latest contestant to be fired from The Apprentice after Team Logic failed to win any orders for their Bix Mix brand in tonight's biscuit task.
Lord Alan Sugar had challenged both teams to come up with "something distinct" in the biscuit market and produce "the packaging, the presentation, the whole lot" before pitching the product to three major supermarkets.
In contrast to Logic's failure, an ambitious pitch from Jim Eastwood helped secure an exclusive 800,000 unit order from Asda for Team Venture's Special Stars, preserving project manager Helen Milligan's unbeaten record.
Beresford brought Tom Pellereau and Melody Hossaini back into the boardroom, blaming her team's failure to attract orders on the poor quality of the biscuit they had engineered.
Sugar noted that there were "too many arguments" among Hossaini's colleagues and said that "he had not seen that much" from Pellereau, but opted to fire Beresford for failing in her own field.
"Zoe, you are a good contender in the sense that you've manufactured something and you've brought it to market already, but as team leader, you should have been in the factory," he said.
"I'm looking for someone to come into business with and if someone can't actually perform in the business that they're in, they're not going to be able to perform with me."
The drinks manager from Stoke-on-Trent had led Team Logic after beating Susan Ma in a vote. Ma later complained that Beresford was "one of the bitchiest and most backstabbing people [she's] ever met".
Speaking in the black cab home, Beresford said: "The product wasn't good enough. If I could go back and change, I'd be in the factory, but I was swayed by them."
The Apprentice continues next Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:09 pm