Some Like It Hot

EVERYONE HAS TO START SOMEWHERE. Just take it from Yeo Hiap Seng Ltd, the food and beverage manufacturer and distributor which began as a family-owned business in 1938 under Yeo Thian In who had moved to Singapore to escape the Sino-Japanese war in Zhangzhou.

Its first sauce factory was established at the junction of Outram and Havelock Roads, but got off to a rocky start because of local vendors conducting door-to-door sales of Cantonese-style sauce. During the Japanese Occupation, the Yeo Hiap Seng factory sustained bomb damage, but that turned out to be fortuitous because its stocks were left alone, unlike …