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A very good afternoon to all of you. I’m really delighted to see so many people here today and delighted to join you in the opening of the Pasir Ris Central Hawker Centre.
Our Foodfare here is a unique concept. It’s a duo-concept where we bring the best of both worlds to our residents. There is something for everybody. It has two levels; the first is level is where we have our local favourites – all the different local delicacies that we look forward to for comfort food. The second floor, the “hipster” fare, where the younger hawkers are bringing in new flavours and new concepts of dining.
While there is something for everyone here, across all different varieties. Our hawker centre here in Pasir Ris seeks to offer residents affordable yet good quality food. This is another step forward for NTUC Foodfare and NTUC as a whole. As we endeavour to make healthy, tasty meals accessible and affordable to all Singaporeans. This is something that NTUC will continue to do by working closely with the relevant government agencies like our grassroots so as to increase our outreach to fellow Singaporeans.
This is important. In the last 6 months or so, I’ve been hearing many Singaporeans’ feedback about their concerns on the cost of living.
From the latest survey on household expenditure, indeed our average monthly spending on food services have grown. It has grown quicker than our spending on other hoursehold expenditure. So because of our working habits now, more of us are eating out and the overall spending, therefore, has also increased.
We all know this firsthand, because we are working parents. More Singaporean parents eat out more often and because hawker centres are the preferred choice and it’s also more convenient.
Knowing this, NTUC has been working hard over the years to do good, by meeting some of these pressing needs of our fellow Singaporeans. It is not only in the area of food, but also in areas of health, eldercare, childcare, daily essentials, financial services, so on and so forth. So NTUC whether it is through our Fairprice, through our NTUC Health, My First Skool, even Foodfare will do social good for everyone.
In this instance, in our hawker centre. NTUC Foodfare will play a key role to help keep the cost of living manageable through their provision of everyday cooked food items, at affordable prices. Especially now, if you would look behind me, we have the Rice Garden. The cheapest, most affordable pricing I see there is $1.50 and this is extended to our ComCare recepients - with a healthy meal of two vegetable and one meat.
NTUC FoodFare will continue to set affordable prices as a benchmark for others in this industry to follow.
At our three new hawker centres – for example, in Bukit Panjang, in Kampung Admiralty and here in Pasir Ris Central, every stall offers at least 1 budget item that is priced from $2.80 onwards and this is available to all residents, to everybody.
Foodfare has also rolled out the NTUC breakfast set – also available here at Pasir Ris at a affordable price of $1.80 for NTUC members. For $1.80, you get kaya toast, two eggs and a kopi drink. Not bad. For the public, you’ll pay $2.20. And you know, this is very much welcome, because this breakfast set has sold more than a quarter million last year. 250,000 sets of breakfast has been sold at our Foodfare hawker centres.
NTUC Foodfare as I mentioned just now, has also started our “Rice Garden”. This is a community programme providing affordable “chai-peng” or economic rice for our residents. Today, across the country, we have 41 Rice Garden outlets and we have served more than 4.5 million servings over the last 12 months.
At Rice Garden, a meal of two vegetable dishes and one meat dish can be as low as $2.00 for NTUC members, students, NSmen and Senior Citizens. We will proliferate more of these Rice Gardens so that hawker food will always remain affordable.
I am heartened to hear of a family of three – Mr Kelvin Lim and his elderly parents that are here today with us. Because Mr Kelvin Lim is a filial son, he takes care of his parents and brings them to different Rice Gardens in Singapore to have affordable meals and achieve two things.
One, be a filial son, bring his parents around and enjoy Singapore and yet be friendly on his own pocket. Because when he comes to NTUC Foodfare he can have a healthy family meal at $6 for a family of three. So Kelvin, you’re here. Later I would like very much to meet you and shake your hand.
When I meet my residents and workers, they sometimes tell me that the cost of kopi has been going up in Singapore, in the different coffee shops in our neighbourhoods. Before I came here this morning, over the last week as I was preparing for the opening. I asked, “how much are the kopi prices here in Foodfare?” Do you want to venture a guess? A Kopi O Kosong at our Foodfare cost 60 cents! And we price our Kopi (that means with milk and sugar) at 80 cents. Why? Because we want to encourage healthier living. Less sugar, less milk. So Kopi is 80 cents and Kopi O Kosong is at 60 cents. So let’s have the best of both worlds – cheap and affordable kopi and healthier living.
In addition, I’m very happy that Foodfare will play our community role as well by launching the Gift-A-Meal Programme today. We’ll launch this and Foodfare will be the first donor of 1,000 meals. Thank you NTUC Foodfare for leading this community effort.
Thank you too to my sisters and brothers at NTUC Foodfare for working hard to moderate the prices of basic food and beverage items to ensure that all these things remain affordable for Singaporeans. At NTUC, we must continue to do our good work, to ensure that we are constantly working hand-in-hand towards our social mission of providing value, quality cooked food for our people.
Congratulations to our team for making the Pasir Ris Hawker Centre a success. Thank you also, to my grassroot brothers and sisters for working very hard to make this a reality together with the government and NTUC. We look forward to working with all of you to make Pasir Ris – Punggol our neighbourhood an even better place for us to live in. Thank you very much!
