PLMOUTH- The Common Man Apprentice project will be entering it’s final phase from November 14 to November 30 as the student created and marketed desserts make rounds at five Common Man restaurants. The dessert with the highest sales will be the winner and the team will receive $500.
Dr. Bonnie Bechard of the PSU business department adapted the idea after being inspired by an episode of Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice”, she, together with her husband Dr. Thomas Fitzpatrick, a professor of business at St. Anselm College, developed the project to give their business students a taste of hands on learning.
“I took a great personal interest,” states Lyon. “[The Common Man Apprentice] was a great opportunity to work with the business students and an opportunity for them to gain knowledge beyond the text book.”
This sentiment was reflected by Fitzpatrick, “With [the Common Man Apprentice], [the students] are getting through the first eight chapters of their text book.”
The students from both schools gained that knowledge by creating and marking desserts which complied with the Common Man theme and guidelines such as: size, ease of preparation, cost of ingredients, seasonal availability, and the products shelf life.
The Common Man Apprentice project has been so successful that it is going to be an annual collaboration between the two schools and the Common Man. Lyon feels that the teamwork skills learned during this project will be crucial to the students later in life. “It’s a conceptual market place. In the business world you’ve got to learn to work with each other. We are only as good as those surrounding us.”
On Tuesday, November 1, the first round of judging took place where desserts from PSU were taste tested by five judges including Common Man Chefs and Bechard’s young daughter Katie Bechard-Fitzpatrick. St. Anselm, students were judged on Thursday, November 3.
Jason Lyon, CEO of Common Man, feels that the judging was the most exciting part of the whole process. “We didn’t know what to expect and we were very impressed by the students from both schools.”
The winners from PSU included teams Dessert Storm and Sweet Success. Dessert Storm is comprised of Graham Hoffman, Jessica Moyer, Kelley Piontkowski and Kyle Allen and they submitted Aunt Alice’s Raspberry Cheesecake.
Sweet Success was made up of Crystal Acheson, Ellen Blakely, Kimberly Rudolph and Dennis Ventola and they found success in their Autumn Harvest chocolate spice cake served with vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce, carmel, whipped cream, and cinnamon.
Three dessert’s from St. Anselm’s are moving on including a homemade S’more Pie, Caramel Fudge Peaches, and a Brown Sugar Cake.
The students enjoyed the project very much and feel that they gained from it. Blakely, from the Sweet Success team, states, “All in all, it was a great learning experience, and unlike any project I have ever been asked to do as a business major. It really put us into a real life work environment by working in teams to create a successful dessert for a real restaurant! It can’t get more hands on and realistic than that!”