AT 52-YEAR-OLD food manufacturer and distributor Seo Eng Joo Frozen Food, a recession is prime time to charge ahead.

While others are cutting back on spending, the Seo family is investing $125,000 in technology to kick-start instant order-taking and invoicing by next month.

The third-generation family business is going full steam ahead with brand-building exercises like food safety programmes with the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore and media advertisements with poultry supplier Charoen Pokphand Group, with no adjustments to budgets.

It is also launching new products throughout the year that will give customers 'bigger bang for their buck', says managing director Billy Seo Eng Fook, 58.

The company, which employs 62 people at its 50,000 sq ft facility in Jurong Industrial Estate, is confident that this year's annual turnover will increase by 10 per cent. January's figures show that takings are slightly higher than last year's.

It declined to give further figures.

Seo Eng Joo was started by the late Seo Hee Moh, Billy's father, as a wet-market butcher stall at Orchard Road Market in 1957. Then located next to Specialists' Shopping Centre, it sold Australian and New Zealand beef and gradually grew into a distribution, delivery and wholesale business.

By 1987, Seo Eng Joo Frozen Food was officially incorporated, and had expanded its offerings to include frozen and raw beef, chicken, pork and vegetable products.

After the mad cow disease epidemic in 1994 - when beef sales plummeted by 90 per cent - and the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the firm diversified into warehousing, processing, and manufacturing menu items for fast-food outlets KFC and Taco Bell. In 2003, it launched its own house brand, FreezePak - a range of frozen chicken nuggets and steaks now sold at wet markets across the island.

Last year, it spent $2.5 million doubling its warehouse capacity to 2,000 tonnes, and upgraded its processing plant to produce fully cooked items such as sauces and chicken balls. It has already scored production deals for Japanese snack chains like Tori-Q and Tako Pachi and is looking for more partners.

With expansion plans under way, retrenchment is not an option. Riding out the tough times means everyone must pull his weight, says deputy general manager Charlie Seo, 32. He is Billy's elder son and one of the four family members in the business.

'My father always says that no matter how good a general is, without soldiers, he can never win a war. We recognise that without these people who have worked with us over so many years, we won't be here today,' he adds.

And so the Monash University banking and finance graduate, who joined the company in 2000, continues to work with his senior operations manager cousin Vincent, 34, and senior process management executive brother Benny, 29, to seek new opportunities to stay ahead.

He says: 'We want to be a multi-functional company that is the market leader through innovation, diversification and integration. There is a lot of pressure because our family's reputation is at stake, but we are determined not to set the company in the wrong direction.'

CASSANDRA CHEW

This article was first published in The Straits Times.