The Apprentice

The Apprentice is back this week with a new batch of ambitious entrepreneurs seeking to demonstrate their commercial insight and business sense to stay out of the firing line. There’s a £250,000 investment at stake and the chance to go into a business partnership with Lord Sugar. Over the course of 12 tough tasks, the 18 candidates will be whittled down until just one victor remains. And plenty of sparks are set to fly in the boardroom along the way! Each week the budding entrepreneurs will be divided into two teams - led by designated Project Managers - that lock horns under the watchful eyes of Lord Sugar's advisor Baroness Karren Brady and new aide Claude Littner. Follow the link to find out more about this years candidates. 

The Candidates

Spider Woman

A t-shirt designed to look like the spider brooch worn by Lady Hale at the Supreme Court on Tuesday has sold out in less than 24 hours. Balcony Shirts, a business based in Boris Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge, replicated the outfit worn by Lady Hale when she delivered her unlawful verdict earlier this week. The business decided that they wanted to capture the popular enthusiasm for Lady Hale and raise some money for charity in the process. Their t-shirts, which went on sale on eBay, cost £10 and would donate 30% of the proceeds to housing and homelessness charity, Shelter. The item proved immensely popular and sold out in less than 24 hours. The brand owner, Scott, announced on Twitter they’d had to stop taking orders at 6,500 units because they were worried about not fulfilling the demand. That number of sales means they have raised a projected £18,000 for Shelter.

Spider T-Shirt

P.L.T

McDonald’s in Canada is launching a new plant-based burger. The PLT (Plant Lettuce Tomato) burger uses a Beyond Meat burger, served on a sesame seed bun with tomato, lettuce, pickles, onions, mayo-style sauce, ketchup, mustard and a slice of processed cheddar cheese. Beyond Meat burgers are completely vegan patties made to look, cook and even bleed like beefburgers. Of course, including all the toppings on the PLT mean it’s not vegan as cheese contains dairy and mayo contains eggs – but the fast food restaurant says it can be customised. The burger is going on trial in Canada for the next month but nothing has been mentioned about it being brought to the UK yet.

PLT

Luxury Kit Kat

Bespoke KitKats are expected to be one of this year’s must-have Christmas presents after its owner, the food giant Nestlé, revealed the upmarket KitKat Chocolatory range. Either via a dedicated website, or by visiting a pop-up stall in John Lewis’s flagship London store, shoppers will be able to order a custom KitKat from nearly 1,500 possible flavour combinations. The ingredient choices include rose petals and cocoa nibs and there is the option to coat the fingers in ruby chocolate. It has also produced “special edition” flavours – a surprising line-up that includes marmalade, Earl Grey and “whisky & ginger”. But a luxury KitKat comes with a luxury price tag. The 150g eight-fingered bespoke bars – which will be made to order in Yorkshire – cost £14 (a 41.5g four-fingered KitKat usually costs 65p). The special editions start at £7.50.

Kit Kat

Thomas Cooked

Founded in Market Harborough in 1841 by businessman Thomas Cook, the fledgling company organised railway outings for members of the local temperance movement. Some 178 years later, it is a huge global travel group, with annual sales of £9bn, 19 million customers a year and 22,000 staff operating in 16 countries. However, just as the travel world has progressed from temperance day trips, so the modern business and leisure market is also changing, and at a far faster pace than in previous decades. The firm is being buffeted by a number of factors: financial, social and even meteorological. As well as weather issues, and stiff competition from online travel agents and low-cost airlines, there are other disruptive factors, including political unrest around the world.  The tour operator's financial difficulties have mounted over the past year, culminating in a refinancing plan in August led by its biggest shareholder, Chinese company Fosun. But banks now want the company to raise extra funds and it could fall into administration within days unless it finds £200m.

Thomas Cook

James Dyson Award

A biodegradable bioplastic made from red algae and waste products from the fishing industry has won the UK section of the 2019 James Dyson Award. Created by Lucy Hughes,  MarinaTex is a translucent and flexible sheet material made from all natural ingredients. It does not require special infrastructure to dispose of and can biodegrade naturally in 4-6 weeks. This makes it ideal for applications in packaging. To the touch, MarinaTex feels a lot like plastic, but the similarities end there. In fact, it is stronger, safer and much more sustainable than its doppelgänger. The material is relatively low tech and does not require much energy to produce. 

James Dyson Award

Robot Future

More than 100 fully autonomous cleaning robots are coming to Singapore this year, made by local manufacturer Lionsbot. Ella tells jokes as she cleans the floor in the island nation's National Gallery... but not everyone is convinced.  It has a $1k a month rental fee, only takes breaks to recharge every three hours, and never needs a sick day. It is hopefully going to help issues with labour shortages in Singapore this year. Is this the future of the workforce?

Robot Future