Dreaming may be a most natural thing for us, yet there was a time when Benny Se Teo felt he did not have the license to dream. In and out of prison and rehabilitation centres for 10 years because of a drug addiction, he was met with repeated rejections as he tried to get his life back on the right track. Interview after interview, it seemed there was no end to closing doors. Yet, he trudged on, and eventually became his own boss.

Even with his newfound success, he never forgot the hardship he went through as an ex-convict. As the founder-chef at social enterprise, Eighteen Chefs, he is known for journeying with ex-convicts bent on turning over a new leaf by giving them jobs in his chain of five restaurants. A Spirit of Enterprise honoree in 2009 and recipient of awards such as President’s Challenge Social Enterprise of the Year (2012) and Emerging Enterprise 2013, he is an inspiration to former convicts and budding entrepreneurs alike.

Apart from taking ex-offenders under his wing, Benny also gives back to society by sharing his life and business lessons at various talks. In June 2014, he was a speaker at the Future Leaders Summit. Themed Dream, Believe, Achieve, it was part of a three-stage programme by the NTUC aimed at empowering professionals, managers and executives in the workforce.

Just before the summit, Singapore Tatler caught up with Benny at his Tiong Bahru restaurant to talk to him about chasing the Singapore dream and his deep conviction for the need to help people on the margins of society.

Benny Se Teo ©Eighteen Chefs

1. What did you dream about, growing up?

In my younger days, I was misled. I spent more than 10 years in and out of prison because of a drug addiction, which I could not come out of. By 1993, I had made up my mind to return to a normal life. I was already 33 then. Others were chasing the Singapore dream of owning a car, having cash, a career and a condo but after what I had been through, my dream was simply to live a regular life. All I wanted was to be able to wake up each morning, have my breakfast with my family, have a job to go to, come home and watch television with the family, then sleep peacefully.

After my prison release, I really wanted to chase that dream. I attended six interviews for jobs like kitchen help and deliveryman but no one wanted to hire me. So I looked for something that didn’t require me to go for an interview: the job of a despatch rider. All I needed then was a pager and a motorcycle. I did that on a freelance basis for seven years. By the age of 40, I was running my own courier service company. About 80 per cent of the staff I hired were ex-convicts. I always told myself that if I made it one day, I wanted to give ex-convicts a chance. I know what it’s like to have to struggle to find a decent job.

 

2. How did you get your start in F&B?

In 1999, while still running my courier company, I left my motorbike aside for a while and flew to Turkey with the Disaster Relief team when a massive earthquake struck Izmit. Travelling with a group of Singaporean doctors and nurses, my job was to build a tent and run a kitchen to feed them. I cooked authentic Singaporean food, which they enjoyed. Some of them suggested that I give up despatch riding and start a food business. Sometimes you need another person to tell you that you have a gift and to make something of it. That’s how my dream to start an F&B joint was born.

Later on, I started my own Chinese restaurant. I bought myself a chef’s uniform, printed the words Executive Chef on it and designed a menu. I did a 10-course Chinese banquet, which was well received. I had no prior F&B experience except for being a tea boy in prison, a “privileged” position where you cook for the superintendent, and the cooking I did on my relief mission in Turkey. God gave me a gift that allows me to replicate very closely any dish that I taste. If you ask me to cook nasi briyani at a Malay wedding for 300 people, I wouldn’t have a problem. I don’t have formal culinary training, but I have a confidence that gives me the ability to whip up delicious meals.

 

3. How did the idea for Eighteen Chefs come about?

In 2006, I did an internship with English celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in the UK. I bought my own air ticket and found my own accommodation. There were some similarities between his Fifteen Foundation (a charity that helps marginalised groups in society and receives its funding from Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant in London) and my concept of hiring ex-convicts, and I wanted to learn more about his restaurant model. At first they did not agree to an internship but after my repeated requests, CEO Liam Black relented. The experience reaffirmed my dream of running a full-fledged restaurant staffed by ex-convicts. In 2007, Eighteen Chefs was born.

About 38% of my staff are ex-convicts. I try to keep this ratio. We are selling food, not tatler_tatler_stories, so our food must be of a certain standard. At one time, it was 50% but instead of me controlling my staff, they were controlling me, so the figure dipped to 20%, and then we grew it to 38%. I was in and out of prison for some time, so I know a lot of former inmates who need work. Some of them know me by word-of-mouth, and many come to me looking for a job. Some of the prison superintendents are my regular customers now. I have never closed the door on anyone, no matter what their past may be. My motto is: if they want to change for the better, I want to partner them on this journey.

©Eighteen Chefs

4. What setbacks did you face along the way?

On the outside, it looks like the company has been growing from strength to strength since it started, but over the past seven years, there have been numerous failures too. We started with a very solid social mission, but no one really thought that the business would one day become this big. When that happened, my business partners began to have their own agenda for running the restaurant. They had each pumped in money to set up the first Eighteen Chefs restaurant and when there were opportunities for us to expand, everyone wanted to have a say. Managing those different, sometimes conflicting expectations was a challenge.

There was also a period in 2010 when we were technically bankrupt. Many creditors were after us, and when I looked back, I could not see my investors. Slowly, we revamped the whole business and since then, business has been good. We just opened an outlet in Ang Mo Kio and in July, a fifth outlet opens in Nex shopping mall.

 

5. With Eighteen Chefs now on sturdy feet, what’s the next step?

We are exploring regional expansion, but wherever in the world we open, Eighteen Chefs always has to be about hiring a certain group of people: ex-convicts. We are not experts in helping other marginalised communities in society, but as an ex-convict myself, when I speak to another ex-convict, I think he will listen to me.

So far, we have never taken any government grants for social enterprises, because we don’t believe in running a social enterprise fully-funded by people’s donations or government assistance. Perhaps if I had taken a grant, we would not have been as successful and I would not be what I am today. When you start a business using your own money, you work harder than if the money had been given to you. The key to a successful business is to have a sound business model and now that we have got that formula right, we may consider getting government help to take the business to the next level.

As we expand locally now however, people realise that we are not only doing a good business, but also impacting positively a particular group of people in Singapore. This recognition comes in the form of various awards.

We run Eighteen Chefs as a restaurant, not a place where customers come and show support or sympathise with us. We don’t sell tatler_tatler_stories; we sell food. And we keep our prices affordable, without service charge. While my competitors have challenges with the labour crunch, I don’t have the same issue because I have a pool of untapped resources, which gives me an edge over them.

Many of my staff have been poached, including my management staff. At first I was angry, but I learnt to be positive about it and am proud that others want to hire the staff whom I’ve trained. After a few months in a new environment, however, my staff come back to me because they miss the close employee-employer relationship in my company. I am very personal with my team and I treat them well.

 

6. What would you consider your biggest achievement?

Being awarded the President’s Challenge Social Enterprise of the Year in 2012.

There are other proud moments too. Recently, on May 1, I cooked for the May Day Rally where Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his wife Ho Ching and 14 Cabinet members were present. I was a bit apprehensive as I had heard that some of them are hard to please, so my tattooed staff and I just did our best. At the end of the event, PM Lee came up to me and complimented me on the food. The next day, I received an email from Temasek Holdings, saying that its CEO, Mdm Ho Ching, had visited my restaurant and enjoyed my food, so they wanted us to cater for their private event, cooking for 350 people. I was very touched.

 

7. How many lives have you touched through Eighteen Chefs?

I really don’t know; I don’t keep count. I guess I have helped a lot of people. Some of my managers and head chefs are ex-convicts and former hardcore drug addicts. However, I am not saying that when you join me, you will become an angel. There are many cases of my staff landing back in prison. One thing’s for sure, though: no one can take away the skills that they learnt while they were at Eighteen Chefs, and when they are released from prison, they will be able to find a job.

 

©Eighteen Chefs

8. What else do you dream about? Any unfulfilled ambitions?

Following my heart all these years, I have already achieved most of the things I had hoped for. I am very contented with my life now, and at the age of 54, I am going to get married in July. I got to know my wife-to-be through our volunteer work at a soup kitchen called Willing Hearts, where volunteers cook, pack and send food to residents of one-room HDB flats.

 

9. Who has been an inspiring figure in your life?

When everybody had given up hope on me, my mum always believed that one day I would make it. Sadly, she wasn’t around when I started the business. I had given her a lot of heartache and mental anguish during her lifetime. I guess the last three years of her life were the best, because she really saw how I had changed and we spent good quality time together. She passed away in 1997.

My father passed on much earlier. He had found out that I was on drugs, and was very sad. I was in a non-government rehabilitation centre then and in my dad’s last few hours, I was given permission to go home to see him.

 

10. What’s your philosophy in life?

Nobody owes you a living. It’s a hard truth. When I was released from prison, I went to six interviews and nobody wantd to employ me. Still, I remained positive; you can’t expect that just because you’ve just been released from prison, others must give you a job.

Similarly, many of my young trainees, upon completion of their training programme, think that the world owes them a living. The rejection I experienced was a motivation to keep trying and not go back to my old ways. And I’ve never gone back to my old ways all these years.