It pays to be crazy sometimes

Many of Apex founder Douglas Foo's ideas are deemed unpractical. But the ones that aren't are taking him places. CHUANG PECK MING reports

By Chuang Peck Ming - Feb 09, 2004
The Business Times

REINVENTING BUSINESS
SINGAPORE INNOVATION CLASS

APEX-PAL International, a local food and beverage company, was one of Spring Singapore's winners for innovation last year. You wouldn't have guessed it from its founder's childhood.

'I come from a very strict family, I had a very disciplined upbringing,' says Douglas Foo, the company's founder and managing director. 'I didn't get to play with many toys.'

That's not the kind of environment that encourages innovators to be born.

It's precisely what the Singapore government now wants to shake loose to free Singaporeans to become creative. Yet, Apex's innovations are there for all to see - and all of them can be traced to its 34-year-old founder. You can check them out at anyone of Apex's 21 Sakae Sushi outlets - expected to hit 25 in the next few months - spread over Singapore.

In the kitchen of a Sakae Sushi restaurant is a sushi-making robot that helps prepare the fresh dishes of sushi. Affixed to each dining table is an interactive menu on a computer screen offering you the restaurant's selections, with simple descriptions; it's a world's-first that is pending patent in the United States. To order, just touch the item you like on the screen. Want something really special? There's an intercom for you to relay your special orders straight to the chef, cutting down slip-ups in the information chain.

Not exactly high-tech, attached to each dinning table is also a nifty tiny hot-water tap diners can use to make their own ocha or green tea from supplied tea bags, and refill constantly. And of course, there's the conveyor belt which roll out the sushi - the one that won Apex the Spring award. 'That conveyor belt is from Japan and has been around for a long time,' Mr Foo says. 'But what we added to it, that's never been done.' He and his team made it portable. It took them six months to design it in 2000, then another three years and between $60,000 and $100,000 to patent it.

Built from blocks of wheels that can be put together - like Lego bricks - the portable conveyor belt can be scaled down to feed a few, or up, for a crowd. A little electric-powered motor controls the speed of the belt. The sushi chef or food server simply stands inside the frame created by the belt to replenish the food items. 'The largest belt we've done has a perimeter of 26 metres - nine metres by four metres,' Mr Foo says. 'That was when we catered for Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's birthday party four years ago.'

The portable conveyor belt has also been used at product launch parties, where the new products were displayed on the belt along with the food. This way, guests did not have to pack into a small space to inspect the products.

Instead, they could view them on the little 'catwalk' as they enjoyed their food and drinks.

Apex hopes the portable conveyor belt patent will help build up its Nouvelle events and catering franchise abroad. 'We are open to licensing agreements with other companies which want to use the system,' Mr Foo says.

Few homegrown restaurants are as prolific as Apex in innovations. In fact, Apex is the only local restaurant owner to be given Spring's Innovation Award so far. At the same time, it has also met stringent criteria to qualify as a Spring Innovation Class company.

'I often think of very crazy ideas,' Mr Foo explains. 'So crazy have been some of the ideas that my management team members ruled them out-of-this-world and unpractical. But there have been others they thought worth exploring and we formed project teams to do feasibility studies.'

Dare to dream
That, along with a management and staff constantly challenged to look for better and newer ways to do things, is how Apex has produced its innovations.

'You have to dare to dream, to let go of your imagination,' Mr Foo says.

But how does such an imaginative mind squares with a strict and disciplined upbringing? Patrina Lim, Apex's assistant vice-president for group marketing and communications, points out that while Mr Foo's parents were strict, they also taught him to stand on his own feet. 'At a very young age, he learnt to be independent,' she says. 'It means he had to engage in creativity, in a lot of thinking and solving problems at an age when others were still being spoon-fed.

A lot of his so-called crazy ideas now come from that aspect of his childhood.' Mr Foo says his father, to discourage him from playing, had deprived him of toys. 'So I played in my mind and created my own toys.'

According to him, his creative side is also explained by the fact that he is a Gemini who is supposed to have a split personality. 'So at certain times I can be very conservative, very quiet and at certain times I can be a very party-sort of guy,' he says.

Perhaps that also explains why Mr Foo, who read finance at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, is very prudent when it comes to money - another trait instilled by his father and which is at odds with his innovative spirit. He doesn't borrow from banks to start a new outlet and, until Apex was listed on the Singapore Exchange six months ago, had financed the growth of his business from savings and earnings.

Mr Foo's creative streak was already on display early in the form of non-conformism. His first personal computer was an Apple model, when all the other boys had the standard Windows-run machines. His projects at school also had to be different from others which, he later learnt, earned him better marks.

So when this former Dunman High School and Victoria Junior College student went into business later in life, he took a course many thought went against the grain - even foolish. He started a sushi chain from scratch, instead of buying a franchise. This was in 1997, a year after he joined a Japanese partner to set up a garment trading firm.

'People laughed at me - they say how can a Singaporean sell Japanese food?' he recalls. And what's more, one who knew nothing about food.

But Sakae Sushi took off and the chain today accounts for the bulk of Apex's revenues of over $20 million yearly, and profits of more than $2 million. It also boasts franchisees in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and China.

The innovations by Apex - which also owns three Crepes and Cream outlets; an upmarket Hibiki Japanese restaurant; and SKAL Scandinavian Cuisine, the region's only Scandinavian eatery - are popular with customers and, according Mr Foo, some parents have even found them useful in initiating their kids into the world of information technology. But the innovations are more than just cute and gimmicky gadgets to pull in the crowd.

Mr Foo says they help to satisfy a customer need and make service a breeze. They also cut down labour costs, improve efficiency and boost the bottom line.

Take the interactive menu which combines display, explanation and order at one go. 'Many customers don't understand Japanese food, but some are too shy to go into the restaurant and ask the service crew about the items,' Mr Foo says.

'Our menus have pictures and descriptions to show them. They can order what they like direct from the screen, without looking around for the waiter or waitress.'

Apex's innovative layout of seats and tables has also expanded Sakae Sushi's seating capacity.

While other similar-sized sushi joints can sit 50 diners each, a Sakae Sushi outlet caters to twice that number.

But innovations alone would not have worked for Apex, which seems to have emerged from last year's Iraq war and Sars outbreak largely unscathed. Its net profits rose 2.9 per cent to $1.1 million for the first half of last year, while turnover was 58.9 per cent higher at $16.5 million - the strongest performance among restaurant businesses listed on SGX.

Affordable prices
Mr Foo, who loves food but is also a health fanatic, pays much attention to the food Apex serves to customers. He ensure the prices charged are affordable to many. (All the sushi platters sell at $1.90 except for delicacies like soft-shell crab and sashimi, which costs $6.50.) At the same time, he provides his staff with career plans and looks after their welfare.

The boss's guiding principle on the food served: it must at least be good enough for his staff to eat. 'If you are not prepared to eat the plate of food you are planning to serve, throw it away,' Mr Foo constantly tells his cooks.

'Because you never know, your loved ones could be eating outside.'

To ensure freshness and consistency throughout the Sakae Sushi chain, Apex imports salmon by the tonne direct from Norway. The fish is prepared in a central kitchen and rushed out twice daily to the sushi outlets. 'Even 5-star hotels are buying our food for their buffet table under their hotel names,' Mr Foo says. 'That's a testament to the high standards of our food. We're using
the same rice as Keyaki Japanese Restaurant at Pan Pacific Hotel, which is very good, and we add vitamin E in it.'

Over the past six years, Sakae Sushi has expanded its menu. 'We keep track of what customers want and our chefs are innovative at coming up with new items. A family who step into our restaurants have a lot of choices. They don't have to worry that grandma doesn't eat raw fish, or the baby can't eat certain items and all that. There's a choice here for everybody - and every age.'

That's very well thought out. A reflection of the disciplined side of Mr Foo?

APEX-PAL - MILESTONES

1996 - Started Apex-Pal
Sept 1997 - First Sakae Sushi outlet at OUB Centre.
Feb 2000
First Sakae Sushi suburban outlet at Eastpoint Mall.
Sole distributor in Singapore for Bud 1/8s Ice Cream of San Francisco.
Mar 2001 - First Sakae Sushi franchise agreement in Indonesia.
Apr 2001 - Started Nouvelle Events for catering, trading in food products and
operating F&B facilities in clubhouses.
May 2001 - Sakae Sushi franchise agreement in Thailand.
Sept 2001 - First Crepes & Cream restaurant at the Heeren.
Aug 2002
Sakae Sushi franchise agreement in the Philippines
Sakae Sushi franchise agreement in China.
Jul 2003 - First Sakae Express outlet at Scotts Shopping Centre.
Aug 2003
SKAL Scandinavian Cuisine restaurant at Wheelock Place, region's first
Scandinavian restaurant.
Listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (secondary board)
Nov 2003 - Sole distributor for Singapore and Malaysia for Twilight
Non-Alcoholic Beverages
Dec 2003 - Hibiki Japanese Restaurant at The Legends Fort Canning Country Club,
Apex's first fine dining Japanese restaurant

AWARDS
Singapore Top Restaurant 2001, by Wine & Dine Review
Enterprise 50 Award 2002, by Accenture and The Business Times
Singapore Promising Brand Award 2003 - Sakae Sushi, by ASME and SPH
Singapore H.E.A.L.T.H Award 2003 (Bronze), by Health Promotion Board
Singapore Innovation of the Year 2003 Award, by Spring
Singapopore Innovation Class Award 2003, by Spring
Excellent Service Awards 2003 (6 Gold, 46 Silver), by Spring and Restaurant
Association of Singapor