WHILE most of Singapore was asleep after counting down to the New Year, a countdown of a different sort was taking place in a cake shop in the north.

Inside the shop, three bakery workers spent the first few hours of 2008 putting buns into ovens.

By 7am, the shutters went up at the PrimaDeli outlet in Block 163, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, for the first time in nearly a month.

Operations at this shop and 38 others ceased from Dec 5, in the wake of a salmonella poisoning outbreak which caused 204 people to fall ill.

Prima's production facility in Keppel Road was also shut. After satisfying checks by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), Prima got the go-ahead on Saturday to start full operations and is back in business for the new year.

Of its 39 franchised outlets, 35 opened their doors on Tuesday, with the rest in the central business district closed for New Year.

Overall sales for the first day were down 'only by 10 to 20 per cent', said Ms Pansy Wong, deputy general manager of Prima Food, parent company of PrimaDeli.

'It has been better than expected,' she said.

At the Ang Mo Kio outlet and elsewhere, display cabinets were once again filled with an array of cakes, from Mango Delight to Cookies & Cream.

Its owner, Mr Jordan Cheang, 35, said his shop had undergone three rounds of cleaning since the closure. Its workers had also attended a compulsory one-day hygiene course.

Mr Cheang, who runs two other PrimaDeli franchises in Jurong and Lau Pa Sat, said he had lost at least $75,000 in sales from the Ang Mo Kio shop alone.

While business got off to a slow start - the morning's takings were half what it used to be - he was upbeat.

'I'm very confident that things will get back to normal soon,' he said.

As of 3pm on Tuesday, he had sold five cakes each at his Ang Mo Kio and Jurong outlet. Each shop usually sells eight to 10 of these mostly 1-kg cakes.

At the PrimaDeli shop in Bishan Street 13, the buns were selling like hot cakes but the cream cakes were a harder sell, said shop owner Anthony Quek, 41.

Cake sales were down by about 10 to 15 per cent.

'I expected it to be worse but right now, we don't have enough buns for our customers,' he said.

Many had bought buns for their children for the first day of school tomorrow, he added.

Many PrimaDeli regulars were happy to see the popular homegrown bakery chain back in business.

Read the full report in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.