St Albans cupcake queen Luisa secures first Apprentice victory

ST ALBANS’ very own Apprentice hopeful enjoyed the sweet smell of success during tonight’s episode when she led her team to victory as project manager.

Luisa Zissman, who runs a cupcake shop in the city centre, finally got to do what she does best in the fourth programme of the series when Lord Sugar challenged the candidates to open a food store.

After the teams had been reshuffled, Luisa seized the opportunity to shine and put herself forward to lead team Evolve.

Upon her teammates’ suggestion the self-confessed risk-taker decided to stock their farm shop ‘Buffalocal’ with expensive, top-end buffalo meat commenting: “I think it is unusual and people will go for that.”

They also settled on selling soup and jacket potatoes at the premises, which Lord Sugar had laid on for them at London’s Broadway Market.

But her teammates were unhappy with her purchasing strategy, persuading her to let them load up with bulk quantities of vegetables to fill out the store.

Luisa kicked off day two by giving her colleagues a pep talk about selling tactics, but there was nothing she could do to draw in the punters first thing in the morning when uptake was slow for their hot food, especially with the high prices for buffalo meat.

“One of the key elements of this task is the takeaway market,” warned Lord Sugar’s advisor Nick Hewer, when the slump in sales dragged on.

As the buffalo meat slowly began to shift, Luisa highlighted the strength of her risky strategy: “People who want that quality of meat will pay the price.”

Finally sales for soup and spuds started to increase, despite problems behind the scenes with production.

When the profits were tallied up back in the boardroom, the 25-year-old cupcake magnate found out she had led team Evolve to their first win, bringing in a profit of £631.52 against Endeavour’s £539.67.

As a reward they were treated to a slap-up meal at a renowned restaurant, while Lord Sugar sent Uzma home in a black cab.

* The Herts Advertiser is backing Luisa to win this year’s Apprentice.

The newspaper has decided to give the St Albans entrepreneur our full and unreserved backing following a spate of negative articles about her in the national and local press.

Editor Matt Adams said: “There has been a lot of gossip and tittle-tattle about Luisa since she was announced as a candidate, but we believe the focus should firmly be on her performance in the show rather than her personal life.

“We have worked closely with Luisa on various campaigns and articles in the newspaper over the past few years, and have always found her to be completely professional and a pleasure to deal with.

“Although we’re only a few episodes in already you can see Luisa is starting to up her game. She showed tonight she is a natural born leader and there is no doubt she has the potential to win.

“The Herts Ad is behind Luisa all the way, and we hope the people of St Albans will join us in giving her their support!”