Rental, labour costs push cooked food prices higher

Rental, labour costs push cooked food prices higher

    By Loi Kar Yee
    POSTED: 31 Oct 2013 22:20

Rental and labour costs have affected cooked food prices. Some hawkers told Channel NewsAsia cooked food prices have risen by at least 10 per cent compared to the same period last year.

SINGAPORE: Rental and labour costs have affected cooked food prices.

Some hawkers told Channel NewsAsia that cooked food prices have risen by at least 10 per cent compared to the same period last year.

NTUC Foodfare, a social enterprise that runs food courts and cooked food stalls, said it had to adjust its cooked food prices by about seven per cent.

The enterprise has a social outreach programme called 'Rice Garden', and the price of its cheapest meal starts at about S$2 at some hawker stalls.

Foodfare said it has plans to roll out this programme to more hawker centres by opening two stalls every month in order to have 100 stalls by 2015.

Perry Ong, CEO of NTUC Foodfare, said: "Even though we may be a social enterprise, we are not immune to the reality of the market today.

"As you know, the market for labour is very tight, so we have seen our fair share of increases in terms of labour costs. Rental costs have also continued to climb.

"This year, compared to the past years, and based on our own experiences, the labour cost has gone up in excess of six per cent, and for rental cost over the last year, we have seen an increase of anything between five and 20 per cent."

- CNA/ms

- wong chee tat :)