The Apprentice - episode 5 review: Sussex contestant Melica is Project Manager, Lord Sugar slams look of Easter Egg

Melica, who is proud to be representing Worthing on the series, is the ambitious owner of a thriving AI tech recruitment business.

Looking to connect her passions for business and travel, Melica’s goal is global. This driven and skilled salesperson is set on her biggest challenge yet, to recruit business tycoon Lord Alan Sugar as her next business partner.

There are spoilers in this article.

You can read our review of episode one here, episode two here, episode three here and episode four here.

And you can see what her odds are of winning following the first episode here.

You can find out about all the contestants in this year’s series here.

These are our thoughts on episode 4 of The Apprentice 2025.

The task – Melica’s highlights

They got the early phone call to say they had to be at Sketch in London. Melica exclaimed: “That’s the one with the egg-shaped toilets!”

Lord Sugar told them they had to create an Easter Egg. They had to design, package and brand it and they had to pitch the product to retailers and the team who get the most hypothetical sales will win.

He mixed the teams up, Fred, Johnny and Emma swapped with Keir and Max. Melica put herself forward and admitted she worked in Waitrose for four and half years. She wanted to go for luxury – and when asked if she had a story to go with her luxury idea, she said either going with a heart or star shape, which raised some eyebrows. She then said she wanted it to be healthy – but her teammates ‘strongly disagreed’.

Dean suggested going with matcha tea and white chocolate – which seemed to go down well.

The other team, led by Di Jana, went for space-themed one.

Melica picked Keir, Amber-Rose, Jordan and Max in the branding team. Jordan was put as sub-team leader. They named their product Choch-Lux – Baroness Brady labelled it ‘boring’. Melica was with Dean and Mia to make the product and she did not look impressed with the taste of matcha tea. When they added the white chocolate it was very green and Melica said she didn’t want it looking like a bogey! They were struggling to taste the matcha when mixed with the white chocolate.

The sub team weren’t impressed with the green log-shaped product Melica and co came up with. But to be fair, it didn’t look too bad – but it wasn’t an egg, and will that count against them?

They then had to shoot a short video. Amber Rose took the lead and went for Love Actually-style cue card scene. It didn;t work – especially with the word ‘unique’ wrongly spelled.

Day 2 was about selling the product. Firstly the reveals to the rest of their team. The sub-team questioned why they even used matcha tea if you can’t taste it. But Melica said she was delighted with her log. She thought they ‘smashed it’.

There was concern the packaging was similar to a big brand – Cadbury. But they said it may resonate with customers quicker.

On the promo video, Melica said: “It wasn’t my favourite video.” Dean said video looked cheap.

Speaking to a focus group – the feedback mentioned the familiarity to Cadbury in the packaging and that they couldn’t taste the matcha tea. Not good! The other team got some tough feedback from children for their space-themed egg.

The likes of Asda, Waitrose and Tesco. They didn’t seem overly impressed with the pitch and the product.

Tesco wanted to have exclusivity with 150,000 orders – but Mia said it was a risk and they sold 80,000 non-exclusive. Baroness Brady said it was a brave decision, missing out on 70,000 orders.

Melica then dealt with Waitrose – her former employer – but they were not going to make an order because of the taste. Melica then said they got thousands of orders from Tesco, which Karen called ‘unprofessional’.

On to the boardroom…..

The Boardroom

Melica said Lord Sugar could start with them. “I have worked hard throughout the tasks and I thought it was time to be leader,” she said.

Lord Sugar looked at the product and said “What’s this got to do with Easter, it looks like scented candle. It looks like something you wopuld put a loo brush in it.”

For a taste test, Lord Sugar said: “Not bad.”

He highlighted the Waitrose interaction – Karen said she

When asked if Melica was a good project manager, Mia jumped straight in and said she felt there was ‘very little strategy’. Max said he would have liked a little more direction from Melica. She said she didn’t want to micro-manage.

On the other team, Lord Sugar was damning – he said their egg looked like the Coronavirus! But he said it tasted very good. Melica looked frosty as Lord Sugar devoured it.

Dr Jana then stunned the other contestants and said he clearly didn’t want it as much as everyone else and wanted to step away from the process. He said: “It’s not a good fit me.”

The result

Team Ascendancy (Melica): They secured orders from five retailers, with 89,750 orders.

Team Parallel: They walked away with two sales, 9,000 units.

Result: Melica’s team win! They were rewarded a decadent afternoon tea. Melica exclaimed: “I love that!”.

Who got fired?

Lord Sugar double checked Dr Jana definitely wanted to leave – and he did and he left. But one of the rest of the team was still going to be fired. All six fought their corner. Lord Sugar said he couldn’t pin the blame on anyone else other than Jana so sent them all back to the house. He said he would have lost his credibility if he had picked on one of those.

Verdict on Melica

A good week for Melica as project manager with a dominant victory. But her colleagues were critical of her in the boardroom and her interaction with Waitrose was a little bit awkward. But a win is a win and that can only bode well going forward. Next time she is project manger, Melica needs to be stronger and have a clearer strategy.

In the reward montage, Melica said: “I thought it was big risk to put myself on the line as PM but just so relieved to win.”

Next week’s task

13 candidates remain – next time they are going to Türkiye.