Laksania interview transcript IV: So in my very limited knowledge at that time of this group of (?

) I need to do things first I mean, we don t run into a project just wow, let s do it . I think first. So I imagine, imagine this group of people, I think of how they do the cleaning of the (?) bone, all the (???) bones that they use, put the sponge. After that, the (??) bone never get thrown away right, they put back, they wash. So they (??) children actually clean the (?) bone, then they pack the sponge They will do that, so . that is the project. So I said, project must be simple task, a (long?) process. So if you look at our laksa and say whoa cooking laksa is so complicated . I agree. But, cooking laksa also means that the steps can actually be broken down into many many small steps. The one that let s look at the ginger, I mean let s look at the chilli, alright? This chilli, someone just need to (???). Put onions, one [person] put garlic, one [person] chop chop chop So I say ok, the whole process, everyone just cook a little bit. They can be very professional as in they do the same thing. Alright, one [person] skin the fish, one [person] (fill? Kill?) the fish, one [person] (fill?) chicken, one [person] do this So that was my very limited knowledge at that time. So I thought Good! Because making laksa involves a lot of steps so I can hire hundreds of them . So that was my vision at that time, to hire a hundred of them in the kitchen just to do different tasks. I have always believed in 80-20. That means in a workplace that is not facing the public, I think have 80% marginalized and 20% abled. That means I can have 20% abled, who are my cooks and chefs, supervise these 80 of them doing these simple tasks. And then my chefs, 20% of them, put it all together, of course the final product is cooked by my chefs. Alright? And then, in the caf, 80-20 also. 80% abled, 20% marginalized, because you cannot let marginalized run this whole place, then it ll be chaos. (???) We really started in 2007, because at that time when we started, we only how to cook (??), like what you say. We often cook this laksa at home, but how many do we only cook for? Normally 5? Max 10 people? How do we extrapolate this to a thousand people? Two thousand people? Remember what I told you about scalable? But does it mean that I can cook a hundred pots, two hundred pots, three hundred pots? Then how do I make it from extra polating to shrinking it back? Reduce it to concentrate? So this back and forth took me three years. It s not easy. Because first of all we have to work on the process itself, break down this process which was used to be done by one person, my maid or my mom. But now I have to see how to break this process into ten processes? Ten simple tasks that each can be done by one marginalized person. Then we have to put them together, then we have to take a (????). So the back and forth took me three years. It s not easy. Because I have not just one product, I have Singapore I have (??) I have Sarawak I have (??). So place has a very different taste. So that is why (??) took me quite a lot of years and also during those times we ve also learnt to work with them. When I first started ok the next question is, of all places, why IMH (Institute of Mental Health)? Why not specifically Pathlight, why not Delta? why not (??)? I have to say that because these people (????). The first group of people I have encountered is from IMH. So I was it was kind of..sometimes what people call fate, or destiny, that someone who was helping this group of mental clients approached me as CEO of secret recipe to say that they want to buy cakes from me to sell in their (??). I said ok, can I see what your (??) does first? So that s when I visited the (??) caf and in there I notice that their caf was set up to train the mentally disabled. But in my opinion I think they didn t do it right because I mean, it s a very noble thing to do, but they re not doing it right because they re putting 80% disabled facing the customers and they only have 20% abled running. You can t put mental clients facing the public I went to see, they cannot multitask. So one guy

make tea, literally stand there, wait, I got tea order then I take out tea bag, put water. Then one guy make coffee, then one guy cut fruits. You know, they re doing the same thing, like what I said, break the process down, but in the commercial environment if I do things like that I think three days I have to close shop. It s a different environment, because they are facing customers. But their effort was really admirable, their effort was really good. I mean I seriously think that the idea was very noble, very admirable, a group of businessmen come together and drive this cause. But this group of people they don t have F&B background. I look at the way they run it, you know it s like . When I was there I actually saw this boy who s probably fourteen fifteen years old, just like my children, I was very shocked I look at him, he s there, how come this boy is not in school? The councilor said because he has mental problems. And that was really the first time it came across me such young children can have mental problems, mental breakdown. So I say that s sad , and because with my (????) I want to give back, so the IMH occupational therapist was very fast in catching me and said Hey, since you have the F&B background why don t you come in and help to see what you can do and so that was in 2007. So we started in this small little kitchen in IMH and started to do some R&D in trying to work with these people. And that is when I realized that I got caught . Because once you started helping these people and began working with them, you cannot pull out. At first I thought I ll just go in and just try helping, but this try out has turn out to be a, you know, something that I find very meaningful so I tried to drive it further and further and further. So from just trying out in a small kitchen to now starting a new chain going to run this and hopefully I can I have three hundred secret recipes I want to have a five hundred secret recipes then we can hire a thousand of clients vision ah people must have aspiration. I know your project is about risks of hiring clients. Frankly, after being here so long, we never felt the risks. And probably a lot of social stigma and a lot of misconceptions of this group of people that have yet to be corrected. In fact yesterday I was meeting up with CEO of IMH and we are sharing because he is also very concerned because we a almost like the re spokesperson. Every time when there s any business (??) IMH is always Laksania, because they re using us like a role model to showcase our central kitchen s background is IMH. So I was telling him that I really struggled, because for three years we have done it with no income. It was just purely R&D, and then we pay the clients, we get them to come and work and paid them. And we trained them to do their work. It was very nice because, you know, all we need to do is just to give him a lift, and then after that they move on. They gain confidence in life and then they move on, and they go out and work and they lead a normal life. That is very important, that s very very important. And I see that three years was really very tough, because all of us were just doing things without knowing whether it is going to work. So it was only the beginning of last year that my products were ready to be launched, but this mall was only ready the end of last year, so we had a gap year of one year. We had help from our friends and also we went into some food courts to try out our products. It was not very successful and we re kind of worried. But throughout this time, I have never taken working with these clients a risk because firstly we are with IMH, and then our kitchen is just next to the occupational therapist. They are very stringent in scrutinizing the right clients that can come to us. Do you know that there are mental patients in Singapore who get locked up in IMH and cannot get out? There s one block called block 7, that block is super serious case cannot come out one. Those are the people that you won t even think of getting near them. That is probably less than hundred of them. Then there is close of thousand that is (???). And then hundred thousands of these people working, living beside us, and what are the common things that they do. (Depends on??) whether as (dishwasher??) or lift

(attendants?). So when people ask me this I say you know what s the risk of you walking on the road and bump into a person with mental problems unsupervised? I think it s higher than me working in the kitchen with them with close supervision Because we always think that you know your enemies, you know what you re facing, you know what you re dealing with, you know what you re in for, and you can prevent and knows what you ll look out for, better than unknown. You re out there walking walking and you that s what happened to me last time, somebody just punched me in the face really a lot of these people work in places like food courts. So in terms of risk, we don t see it. I always believe that when you do good, you will be blessed. JL: Just now you said that IMH has stringent standards in checking who is allowed to work with you. So you have to get approval from them before you can employ them? IV: Yes of course. PL: (????) IV: No. No no no. Ok. Right now, it is very important, in fact, for all the budding social entrepreneurs, now (??) I mentor a few social entrepreneurs (??) .There is one thing I always emphasize. We are a running business. I am in no way a councilor myself. I am in no way a doctor myself, or a psychiatrist. If you are about to break down or do something funny, I won t know. All I can do is, I always say, I can only provide you with the job. If you want to work, I have an open ground for you, you can come in. But you want to come in, you must have somebody behind you who can support you emotionally. So right now, I have people from IMH, I have people who are blind, I have people who are physically handicapped, I have (??), I have, just recently, people who have eating disorder, so young girls (?????) So (??????) ..I always tell them, we never stop people from coming in, in fact we take them, because this is social enterprise. We do social more than just social like what you see, but it is a lot deeper than that. So for example, all these people when they come in, my only condition is that you must have some emotional support behind. So for example people from Delta Senior School, these are the kids with low IQ, they must have a councilor. That means let s say if they are out there and suddenly one mentally disabled person just come in and say that..I won t give him. Because I can give them the job, but I can t help them emotionally. If you suddenly break down and cry I can t do anything I don t know what to do. I m not a professional councilor. So we always have to make sure that they have a support, or somebody that can watch over them. FQ: (??) trained to be in the working environment IV: Yes. And what is more important is that they are supported. That means the councilors visit them very often, like (????). And her councilor will come in every morning to make sure that, you know, because she s doing all the kitchen tasks, cutting vegetables and all those, so she can do the work, but then, whether she is under stress or not, whether because some of them cannot take friends laughing at them, colleagues laughing at them this kind of thing. You know, they have stress and they can t tell us, so at least they have a councilor to fall back on. So that is my basic requirement. ( ..) So we are not worried at all. And in fact, all my staff work in the IMH kitchen, now you want to put them back in Secret Recipe nobody wants to go back. Because suddently they get some purpose in life besides just working. I mean work in not just work, when we get to work with them, and sometimes it s not just the work and the money itself that is rewarding, I m

talking about the clients ah. It s like a simple gathering? Because when you work together (???). And then they will say (????????........) And they get more updates about when they get better, and when they get better they look happier, and when they re (??) then they don t work! (huh) And to me that is the best thing. So over the years we actually have trained more than a hundred of them. PL: (?????) IV: (?????) But let s say if you look at Delta Senior School (DSS), it depends on what you mean by train. Ok, Laksania kitchen, in the three years that have passed, it is almost like a training kitchen because we only train (???) output, but now things are different, from this year onwards it s different because actually it has become a commercial kitchen. Because whatever they make (??). When you say it s a training kitchen then you only train, you re not supposed to sell your food. But now no, we are making food to sell. So right now these people when they come in they get training but they re actually really working. And in DSS they have a (preliminary?) program. So they train some of their kids in cooking. Basically in Delta they have four areas of training. One is in culinary, one is in horticultural, one is in housekeeping, working in hotels, cleaning, the other one is janitorial, cleaning toilets and so on. The children that study in the culinary side, in the last six months of their school, they ll work in our kitchen. So they get certain exposures working in a commercial kitchen, then after that then they (??) GC: In your opinion, how receptive do you think Singaporeans are to social enterprises? IV: Over here, we never publicize. It is because I believe Social enterprise is actually very new in Singapore. I ve learnt this the hard way because a lot of social enterprises like VWOs, like charities. People are used to charities and non-profit organizations. So (??) they do fundraising, they do a lot of (sympathy votes??? And rara shows???) like your so all these types of .So for us, I want to be different, because I believe that (???). I want my clients to work with dignity here. I don t want people to see them and say this one like that ah? . So we don t want to publicize. I always believe that for social enterprise, your product must be good. Because we want for-profit, and we are competing with everybody else on a same fair ground. We pay commercial rental, we hire people and pay them commercial rate. So we re on equal footing. I don t believe in using social cause to get support. I rather say that hey you like my food? So I hope today you all will go back and say hey look (??) is very very nice, I hope you all forget about all the social part of it. Of course you remember your project, but you come here because you like the food. Don t come here because you want to support because I have seen so many social enterprises, those that branch out from VWOs and charities. They cant shake away that kind of ideas. You go there and eat the food, not very nice, but you still support. First time ok, second time, third time? GC: It s not sustainable. IV: Exactly. So for us we are business people, we go for the business side. We want to make sure that our business succeeds, because if my business succeeds then I can help more, but I don t (put my help????? Business??) as the to promote that. Because I don t think that (?????). But having said that, you ask me whether Singaporeans are receptive to social enterprise or not, most people, sometimes I do sit down and talk to customers, and of course if I talk more I will

definitely mention the social side of Laksania, people will ask me (?????) you know, it is not something that I feel ashamed of, it is really something that I want people to enjoy the food, and then (?????). So far, the people I talked to, they really liked the place. They say that it is very admirable, and it is rare that Singaporeans are trying to do something to make changes. I also have a smaller group of not so nice Singaporeans. I happen to put this uncle in one of my outlets. He is handicapped and has a burn mark on his face. So I had this customer who came all the way up to my caf and said oh your food very nice but this uncle (????) you know ah, that man in the shop ah, is a turn off . [JL, PL, GC, and FQ shocked]. You are GenY, those are baby boomers, they are not enlightened yet. Some will even ask me the food from IMH ah, can eat or not? JL: They are quite judging when they hear about it GC: The stigma is still there IV: In fact, if you all can get hold of the book ..The rest of the book are all sold. Bought by the customers. In the book, they actually talked to different (??) mental clients, and it is a big stigma, and the (cash???) they re talking about is so real. It is this I cannot be seen cage that forever captures them inside. Because when they go out to work, they don t even dare to take medicine, you know, because these people they have to take their medicine [memo3 01:01]