I found it strange that cost, profit margins ect were never mentioned in this weeks task. How can a supermarket agree to order 2000 units if they don't know the cost ?

I appreciate that we need to suspend a certain amount of reality for each task but cost and profit are fundamental to any business .

These are not real orders and the supermarkets know that. It makes really little sense. They know it's for the apprentice. So most likely they decide on the people not on the product.

I'm sure they're told to make the orders as realistic as possible, otherwise the results tasks would be pointless.

And we don't know that cost wasn't discussed. The only bits that we see are the bits that the production team thinks is interesting for us as viewers. They might have talked about cost and value for money for ten minutes, for all we know.

Indeed. There seemed to be nothing to stop them offering finest caviar, or truffle burger for discerning gourmets..

Though as they offered cheap stuff you wonder if thats what the rules said some where, or they had no imagination.

It was more the, 'we'll make it taste better, we'll add more salt' that made me double take - that and the fact the supermarket big wigs nodded happily without thinking about daily allowances or what it would do to their traffic light system.

The cooking part of the task was completely redundant. It was all about the pretty boxes.

iirc Jedi Jim promised a grand marketing campaign for his biscuits that persuaded ASDA (yes them again) to order 800k packs
Asda seem to be the biggest sucker for blue sky pitches

Well, that's ready meals for you.

True though of masterchef - there they always seem to be being told to add more lethal salt or pepper, or hot spices ... or cream.......and to not bother actually cooking it much if its meat.......

OP makes a good point about the cost though. Normally LAS is all over the costings. And in children's food, where I think there's regulatory requirements, it's really difficult to balance health, palatability and price.

But as dubest said, the task was probably was more about the team's judgment than developing a real potential product.

There are tasks where it's a factor and tasks where it isn't. For example, on the furniture task both teams had to design to the same price-point. On this task, Lord Sugar's briefing emphasised quality rather than price so I don't think price mattered.