How old do you have to be to work at Planet Smoothie?

I'm trying to organise a school smoothie sale. Can anyone help me work it out?

• I'm in charge of a group of 28 14 year olds and, as a class, they have to organise a charity event to promote healthy hearts, and they want to do a smoothie sale. I was thinking if we get some blenders and do maybe four different flavours, then we can blend them up and sell them. We'll obviously have to get a load of chopped fruit and milk and yoghurt but I thought as long as we're prepared and have everything ready beforehand then it'll be alright. Does anyone have any ideas on how it can work? Anyone done this before? I just want it to run smoothly and not like a total catastrophe.

• Answer:

  One of the most successful in our business week at school made better progress & profits simply because the team organised themselves into a production line - they made sandwiches and all took a role, from buttering bread, adding filling & sauces, to bagging up & cashier. Maybe do some rehearsal for what are foreseeably tricky combinations of things - find out the best way to get all the fruit required into a blender without any extraneous/unwanted matter from the peel, core or seeds, bananas e.g. have a lumpen mass at one end, it's not very pleasant to eat, might blend ok, but probably best removed - it's only about the size of a pea. Apples will have to be peeled as required or they will quickly discolour making the product less appealing, even if this is not evident in the finished product - the sight of it is off-putting. It is possible you can have ready chopped pieces in e.g. water with lemon juice to halt the enzymes, but this would require a large container of water near electrical appliances. Seedless fruit are the best to go for - but do you pay a premium for these? Ideally a fridge will store everything and keep it pleasantly cool - but if the door is constantly being opened it could be completely ineffective. Clearly, disposable containers are best to avoid breakages and a potentially impossible washing up task - which also adds workload, but you need to ensure that bins being used will take the load it will impose upon them, and that you are responsible for picking up empties that aren't properly disposed of... As long as your staff are energetic and enthusiastic and take all this kind of stuff on board, it should go without a hitch - don't count on luck though - try get them to understand it may run again year on year if it is successful in the first instance - they could be pioneers and see those in ensuing years with more than a little poignancy, another matter for the heart to think on...