Two city schools to test selling skills in lemonade contest

IT is a fruity challenge of which Lord Alan Sugar would be proud.

Two city schools are set to battle it out in an Apprentice-style contest to see who can sell the most homemade lemonade.

A total of 18 pupils from Drummond Community High School and Gracemount High School will go head to head in a lemonade sell-off to test their business skills on Saturday.

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The friendly battle, dubbed “Citrus Saturday”, will see them compete to make the biggest profit from their homemade lemonade at two locations – the Royal Botanic Garden and Cameron Toll shopping centre. The test will be in the taste, with the teams having already experimented with different flavour combinations to find a winning secret formula.

A group of Edinburgh University students have been on hand to act as their mentors.

It will be the first time the fruity event has taken place in Scotland, with the city council and Edinburgh University leading the roll-out.

Vaila McLaren, art teacher at Drummond Community High School, said: “I think it’s a great opportunity for the pupils to explore their entrepreneurial skills. They get to keep all the profits, so it should be interesting to see how much that motivates them.”

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Oliver Gashi, 15, a fourth-year pupil at the school, who will be part of the team at Cameron Toll, said the pupils hoped to make around £10 each from selling each cup of lemonade for around £1.10.

He added: “There will be five of us at Cameron Toll and we only need two people on the stall, so we will have people walking about trying to get the shoppers to head over to the stall. I’m pretty confident that we will win.”

Citrus Saturday will give pupils a taste of working on a business project and developing skills such as budgeting, negotiating and marketing.

Among the pupils’ marketing tactics will be distributing leaflets on the day to entice customers over to their stall.

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Both schools have experimented in the home economics department to produce three varieties of lemonade, with fresh batches made on the day. Prices will range from 50p for a half cup to around £1.10 for a full cup.

Third-year Gracemount High pupil Ryan Ferguson, 14, will be based at the Botanics.

He said: “I’m excited. I think it will be a good experience for us and it will help with our business education.”

He hopes the team will make a £200 profit from selling each cup of lemonade for £1 each.

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As well as selling a classic lemonade, which the pupils have named “The Old American”, Botanics visitors will also be able to try lemonade with orange and lemonade with strawberries, which the pupils have called “The Pink Lady”.

All eight pupils taking part from Gracemount High are studying for a Standard Grade in Business Studies, while the pupils from Drummond range from first to fourth year.

The pupils will be at their stalls from 10am on Saturday.

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