Singapore’s vanishing S$3 chicken rice stokes inflation angst

BREAKING for lunch during his work as a handyman in Singapore, Zuo Jing Fa usually heads to the nearest food hall in search of a cheap meal.

He’s having to look harder these days as inflation hits hawker centres – the open-air food complexes dotting the city and long a source of affordable dining in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Prices of everything from satay skewers to seafood noodles have risen over 12 per cent in the past two years. Hainanese chicken rice, a national dish that comes with rice cooked in stock and garnished with cucumber and chili sauce, can rarely be found for around S$3 as was common several years ago. An average plate now costs more than S$4.

“I have no other choice – I still have to eat,” said the 69-year-old, who relies on government cash payouts to augment his monthly income of around S$800.

At stake is what Singapore’s central bank chief once referred to as a key socio-economic safety net in the city-state, where daily life is less luxe than jet-setting scenes from the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians might suggest. Four in five residents visit a hawker centre at least once a week.

Though the country has one of the highest density of millionaires in the world, economists have raised concerns about stark income disparities. A recent study estimated that about 30 per cent of working households earn less than needed for a basic standard of living. Against such a backdrop, the low price of hawker food has long been considered sacrosanct.

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Simmering discontent over higher prices could add to headaches for Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong whose ruling party faces multiple scandals including a corruption probe of a minister. Although there’s little expectation of a major upheaval, the party, in power for nearly six uninterrupted decades, faces a delicate leadership transition as Lee looks to step down and it gears up for a general election due by 2025.

Shaped by government

While New York has its pizza joints and Hong Kong its cafe-style diners, few come close to how essential hawker centres are to Singapore – so iconic that they’ve been listed as an “intangible cultural heritage” by Unesco. Typical dishes sold at the various food stalls symbolise the melting-pot nature of the island itself. A popular savoury flatbread called roti prata was introduced by Indian immigrants while Hokkien mee, or seafood noodles tossed in prawn-flavoured broth, is believed to trace its origins to China’s southeast. The rich flavours of laksa, or noodles with cockles and fishcake in a coconut-flavoured soup, reflect the mixed Chinese, Malay and Indonesian heritage of many Singaporeans.

The development of hawker centres also mirrored the country’s transformation from a bustling port attracting economic migrants to the more manicured, financial hub it is today. Seeking to push itinerant food vendors off the street over hygiene concerns in the 1960s, officials corralled them into buildings with communal seating and adjacent wet markets.

“Street food has been part of Singapore’s culinary landscape from very early on because you had lots of migrant workers who relied on food consumed outside of the home, so getting rid of it wasn’t really a possibility,” said Nicole Tarulevicz at the University of Tasmania. The associate professor of history and classics has written about Singapore food culture. “This is actually a very Singaporean approach – rather than ban it, they regulated it.”

Even today, hawker centres remain closely managed by the government, with strict regulations around food hygiene. A new rule implemented in 2021 requires patrons to return their dirty trays and utensils or risk being fined.

To support hawkers, the government has long offered subsidised rents, helping people like Tan Sin Hui who set up a drinks stall at Hong Lim Market & Food Centre over three decades ago.

“I was penniless,” said the 75-year-old, who still works over 10 hours a day crushing sugarcane stalks between whirring metal cylinders. “I was raising three kids on my own, and my husband was not working, just eating and playing mahjong all day.”

Her stall, a stone’s throw from Singapore’s business district, offers cups of sugarcane juice for as little as S$1.50. It was one of many food stalls forced to raise prices this year amid a surge in costs of everything from imported rice and eggs to cooking oil. The country’s headline inflation rate sped up to 7.5 per cent last year, although it moderated to 4.0 per cent in August according to the latest data. A tight labour market has added to the cost pressures.

Data also shows price hikes at hawker centres have been much smaller than the rise in costs of items such as eggs and chicken. Food critics say vendors fear turning off longtime customers who see them as an oasis of cheap in a city where an influx of wealth has driven up the prices of everything from cars to property prices.

“Nowhere in the developed world will you find dishes at such low prices,” said Pamelia Chia, a chef and a writer on Singapore food heritage. “It’s not that these dishes are any less artisanal than anything from the west, but people impose a price ceiling on these dishes,” she said.

Rising rents

Hawker centres have not been immune to rising property prices. Rents at the nearly 120 hawker centres, mostly managed by the government, are now allocated by a bidding system, with the bulk of them no longer subsidised. The bid value of monthly rents for cooked food stalls nearly doubled to S$308 last year from S$157 per square metre in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg at mid-year. Some, including restauranteur and food critic KF Seetoh, question this system.

“I see no reason why public hawker stalls built with public monies, and expected to be offering very affordable food for the masses, must be on a highest-bid-gets-it system,” said Seetoh, who last year opened New York’s Urban Hawker – a street-food market based on Singapore’s hawker centres and born from his collaboration with the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

Prime Minister Lee’s administration has sought to show it understands the pain of higher living costs. The government recently pledged to help citizens cope with retirement and home ownership. Given the impact that rising food costs could have on the public, it has also introduced a series of steps including expanding an existing scheme providing rent discounts for eateries on the condition that they provide affordable meals.

It is also handing out vouchers to support food businesses including hawkers. Many low-income Singaporeans, including one 75-year-old resident in the western neighbourhood Bukit Panjang, rely on these subsidies.

“Without these vouchers I probably will go even less to hawker centres,” she said, preferring to give only her last name Neoh. Like Zuo, she earns just several hundred Singapore dollars each month doing odd jobs such as reselling discarded items – just enough to take care of her daughter who has a mental illness. “The older generation who do not have much income will choose to cook at home. That’s always cheaper than hawker food.” BLOOMBERG