By Edwin Loh

FAMILY is something close to Select Group managing director Vincent Tan's heart, and this is apparent when he talks about his business. After all, it was his family who had helped him start a small catering service back in 1991. It is also a family-like work environment that has helped Select grow into a food and beverage (F&B) heavyweight.

Mr Tan, then 27, quit his job in the furniture business and roped in his brother Jack to start a catering business delivering tingkats (food containers) of rice, meat and vegetables to customers, based on a gut feeling that this was an under-served segment.

'At that time, I saw that most of my married friends had nicely renovated houses with good kitchens but they didn't use them at all. They just had no time to cook,' says Mr Tan.

Operations started small with the brothers working out of the Bedok North hawker stall operated by their mother. The company's small start-up capital, mainly from his savings, funded the purchase of a fleet of 10 vehicles that were used to deliver orders to the eastern part of the island.

His gut instincts paid off, as the company grew from strength to strength. In just four years, Select added two kitchens to keep up with demand, and had 30 vehicles to cater to homes and events islandwide.

In the ensuing years, the business branched into several other complementary areas, such as institutional and offshore catering services, as well as developing and managing food retail establishments. It also brought franchises such as Texas Chicken under its umbrella, and bought over The Peach Garden Holdings - which Mr Tan hails as his most satisfying business deal to date.

Purchased in 2009, the Peach Garden subsidiary accounts for about 30 per cent of the group's annual revenue, which was $75.5 million in 2010 compared with $61.5 million the year before. Profit margin rose 5.5 percentage points to 71 per cent over the same period.