For me, the main issue with this task was that, in my opinion at least, the wrong team won. It felt odd to me that the supermarkets picked what seemed a good quality product, that could easily just have been served as a treat, over something that was essentially just good packaging. Neil, Luisa and Francesca didn't have a product, none of the supermarkets nor the sample tasters liked the taste. The packaging was good, that was about it. Is packaging and a promise to improve really more investable than something that already had a popular taste, simply because it was felt 'Mums' wouldn't buy it?

So my question is, if you were in the supermarkets position and had to pick one of the products to invest in, what would it be?

You cannot use words like 'deadly' on a food product and expect adults to buy it for their kids. Basic stuff, imo.

I'd reluctantly choose Pow Wow simply because the other name kills the product before anyone even tastes it.

Tesco noodlepots

http://www.studento.com/win-competit...grabs/pack.gif

And really I dont think I'd but any of them, i am not very fond of British ready meals.

I think Alex's original idea of 'foods from around the world' was a good one

He should have stuck with it and told Mr Monaco to zip it

ts the name that kills the consumer, when the kid tries to eat anything else with a skull and deadly written on it.

Pow Wow sounded means something I assume in some native american language, Wow Chow would have made more sense - particularly if the chow was aprt of the fusion....?

Both were totally useless. One had what appeared to be a god product but had bt5he packaging and market totally wrong and unacceptable. No supermarket would put it on the market with a Hazard symbol on it

The other team had a poor product with poor packaging which was describing it like a floor cleaner or oven cleaner

I thought it was 'Oh my Pow'?

Regardless, I preferred it

I personally think that this task is next to useless, are the candidates being marked on their culinary skills or their business skills. They should be given a list of products that they can market and then choose how to package and sell the product. As it was the most blandest, crappiest product won, so what was the point of trying to make it in the first place. The other team had a better tasting product but lost out on the marketing so again what was the point of sending half the team away to make something. Plus it was unfair, because we had just one person trying to make something as opposed to 2 on the other team.

And I don't believe for one minute that none of the candidates on Alex's team had no cooking skills, even to the point of not knowing that you must taste as you make. Louisa wasn't even picked up on this, for someone who claimed she had no skills, she certainly knew her ingredients.

From a marketing and selling POV Alex's was by far the best campaign, and with some tweaking would I think be successful. Pow Wow was crap, the box was ugly, the food crap, and the whole idea was flawed.

I'm guessing the sort of parents who would buy their kids a ready meal would just buy the ones that their kids wanted, which would probably be the Deadly Dinners one. It might have a skull on the package, but it's obviously not going to have poison in it, people aren't that stupid to think it would.

Alex's first idea would have been the best though. And the Oh My Pow! one shoudn't have won imo, it didn't taste good and the name was crap.

I failed to see what was so good about Oh My Pow

The concept was awful the fusion of those foods/ cuisine was just wrong, it apparently tasted awful, and the packaging was just plain awful......

Look at the ready meals on a supermarket shelves, and its pictures of the dish being served, on in Bighams case - a clear view of the ingredients.... Nothing like what those guys produced - and the name was dank too!

They were lucky to win, very lucky as the other team had the superior product - and had they just gone for Dracula Dinners they would have walked it!

I didn't like the packaging for either so probably neither of them. If I looked closer however I would probably go for Deadly Dinners because of the ingredients and realise the packaging was a laugh.

I'd have gone with 'Deadly Dinners' but with the proviso it'd be softened a bit in name, image and tagline to keep the fun factor but appease to the parents. The concept isn't too bad, the food went down well with the target market, and it can branch out to many different types of meals. The other idea which I think was to have ready meals based on cuisine from various cultures would also probably have mileage without being contentious.

'Oh My Pow!' would be a gamble because if the food was as bland as people were saying I would not know how it would taste after adjustments - and since I haven't had Caribbean/Thai fusion food before I wouldn't know how it should taste. The Caribbean/Thai fusion idea is quite risky on the whole I think.

It would have made more sense if the teams had their own chef available for them to prepare a dish for them based on their instructions. As has been said, judging a candidates cooking skills has no bearing on this process at all. This would at least have taken out the possibility of someone messing up the execution and allow both teams to be judged on the concept and packaging.

They did seem to have someone supervising them in the kitchen but they didnt seem to have any input.

I would have gone with the deadly dinners despite its flaws. The winning teams product i thought had an awful name, terrible packaging and a rubbish general idea. Surely some kind of Jerk dish would overpower anything paired with it anyway.

I am a mum (and a sensible one at that!) but I didn't see the problem with deadly dinners? At the end of the day, as long as the contents are healthy, if my kid thought he was eating bats blood and prawn pasta he would probably eat the lot. I don't take him to the supermarket and let him pick food based on the labels and he rarely sees what I am preparing him, just the finished product. Its a bit of fun, some people have no sense of humour.

As for the skull thing putting everyone off, seriously? Any proper parent puts all real 'deadly' goods with skulls on out of reach of little hands anyway

The pow only if I had to have one

Both were a bit of an awful prospect to be honest but pow wow won because they did a better rescue job.

That said, the idea of kids food is a better one than fusion which is a bit of a buzz word on masterchef and only works when it's a fusion of two styles which compliment each other.

Thai and Carribean do not compliment each other!

These tasks are fatally flawed because the market research appears to be done after it's too late to make major changes.

Where the deadly dinners could have won it is in listening to the market research and admitting the issues in the pitches. If they'd gone in saying that following research they would have to remove all the skulls and change the name slightly but keep the basic concept the same they would have got orders from all three as it was a task about creating a brand which they had much better than the other team.

In the event this is basically what the other team did, although you have to wonder about a buyer who is won over by being told "I know it tastes like sh!t but the real thing will actually be delicious" and go ahead and order some anyway.

My suspicion is that it was agreed that they couldn't possibly not punish the team that was so stupid as to put skulls on food packaging and the buyers weren't really involved at all.

Despite the bad branding Deadly Dinners was easily the better product. It was simple, it had a good strong concept and had they gone with Alex's original idea they would have walked it easily. The Caribbean/Thai fusion was just a bad idea and the dish sounded awful. The fact that it was bland didn't help but even if you ignore that the only thing they really got right was the branding. No amount of branding would have convinced me to buy Pow Wow where as I would have bought the Deadly Dinners. I wouldn't like the packaging much but that is secondary especially when you have something a bit different that appeals and seems to work.

It just goes to show supermarkets are more interested in flashy graphics than actually what's in the packet.

It's all a bit pointless as the winning team only won by saying they would change the actual product! Alex should have just offered to tone down the packaging and perhaps use a different word to "deadly". I think their idea was at least more interesting and just needed a bit of adjustment.

Agree, but the whole task is flawed if, when you reach the client you can change everything to suit the them, why bother bringing anything but some ideas written down on a white board!

Don't like the taste, we can change that
Don't like the packaging, we'll change it
Crap idea, what would you like to see

Agreed. Myles thinks he's all that, he isn't. Too smarmy, stuck up and proving to be very manipulative. And isn't the Apprentice for people in their 20's basically? 39 strikes me as being too old to be apprenticed. He should stay where he is, at the 'top end' of the market and leave the new ideas to the young brains.

I totally agree.

The 'apprentice' position was, but this is about being a business partner, not an apprentice. Lord Sugar apparently wanted to change the title of the show, but the BBC wouldn't let him.

I agree with this and the firings themselves are becoming a joke, seemingly to justify a finale and an ending LS has already decided upon based on his favourite business plan.

Can you give an example of that please?