The Apprentice contestant ready to impress despite family bakery's £27,000 loss

27 January 2024 , 20:42

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The Apprentice contestant says he is ready to rise to the next challenge (Image: PA)

An Apprentice contestant is hoping to make some real dough out of the show after his family pie firm sank tens of thousands into the red.

Hoping to prove himself to Lord Alan Sugar, Phil Turner boasted to the BBC of his success transforming family-owned Turner Pies into “a seven-figure profitable business”.

But accounts show the company made a £90,000 loss in the past 12 months, going from £117,000 in profit to facing £27,000 of losses. Phil, 37, was 21 when he and older brothers Joseph and Peter took on the business, founded in the 1930s, in 2009. It made a £1.66million gross profit last year but administration costs for its 46 staff were £1.62m.

That, plus distribution costs of £79,000, left the books in the red. Phil also dissolved a real estate firm, Number Three Property, months before signing on for the BBC show. And the Apprentice will not be the star’s first TV stint. He appeared in the 2018 BBC documentary Life of Pies and judged Love Island ’s Kem Cetinay and TOWIE’s Megan McKenna on Celebrity Master-Chef in 2021.

Phil Turner

The British Pie Awards also crowned him Supreme Pie Champion in 2020 for the family firm. Ahead of The Apprentice, Phil, from Bognor Regis, West Sussex, said: “Building my business over the years is a succession of failures. Almost everything I’ve done for the first time failed in one way or another. I live by the motto, ‘We win or we learn’. I’ve learnt how to run a business the hard way and now I feel like it is time to take my business to the next level.”

TOWIE's Chloe Brockett makes cheeky dig at Saffron Lempriere during filming

The 18th series starts this week with Karren Brady and previous winner Tim Campbell joining tycoon Lord Sugar in the boardroom. The 18 candidates vying for his £250,000 investment will face a host of challenging tasks, from a virtual escape room to creating a ­children’s cereal. There will also be a trip to Jersey for the discount buying task and to Budapest for a tourism challenge.

• The new series of The Apprentice starts on Thursday at 9pm on BBC One

Nicola Fahey