Singapore hawkers feel the sting of rising prices, ‘no thanks to Russia’

Common ingredients such as cooking oil, chicken and eggs have all jumped in price thanks to Covid-19, the supply-chain crisis and the war in Ukraine

Many of Singapore’s hawkers have been forced to up their prices, especially hurting those on lower incomes for whom such food is a necessity

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People have breakfast at Tiong Bahru Market hawker centre in Singapore last month. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 9:40am, 2 Aug 2022

Lie Kam Fatt has been running a traditional Chinese dessert stall in Singapore for more than 40 years selling a wide range of sweet soups and custards, such as black-sesame and red-bean pastes.

In December, he had to do something he hadn’t done in three years: raise his prices.

Lie now charges an extra 50 Singapore cents (36 US cents) per bowl. It may not sound like much, but for the mostly elderly, lower-income customers he serves, every cent counts.

A vendor prepares a plate of chicken rice at a hawker centre in Singapore in May. Photo: AFP

“I know some of my customers will grumble about it, but I may have to shut down my business if I don’t raise prices. All of my ingredients have become too expensive,” he said.

Lie runs a stall at Singapore’s Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre, the largest of more than 100 hawker centre – open-air food courts that sell a variety of cuisines at affordable prices – in the country. But while a S$5 (US$3.60) meal is a delicious novelty for tourists and an appealingly cheap alternative for some locals, for others, it’s a necessity. Hawker stalls are staples for lower-income individuals who can sometimes live off as little as S$5 a day, and for this segment of the population, a 50 cent price increase amounts to a big difference.

Lie is one of many hawkers in Singapore who have had to raise their prices in the first half of 2022 to continue to make profits as the costs of many common ingredients – including cooking oil, chicken, and eggs – have jumped in the past year because of Covid-19, the supply-chain crisis, and the war in Ukraine. A bak kut teh shop that sold a S$5 pork-rib dish for 18 years without adjusting its price, for example, just raised the price by S$6, and one drinks stall has had to tack on an extra 10 cents to each of its S$1.50 drinks since December.

For the 65-year-old Lie, he said the cost of almonds alone, which he uses to make his sweet-almond paste, has more than doubled since November last year – going from S$7 per kilogram to S$14.50

Singapore hawkers feel the sting of rising prices, ‘no thanks to Russia’

Common ingredients such as cooking oil, chicken and eggs have all jumped in price thanks to Covid-19, the supply-chain crisis and the war in Ukraine Many of Singapore’s hawkers have been forced to up their prices, especially hurting those on lower incomes for whom such food is a necessity

Common ingredients such as cooking oil, chicken and eggs have all jumped in price thanks to Covid-19, the supply-chain crisis and the war in Ukraine

Many of Singapore’s hawkers have been forced to up their prices, especially hurting those on lower incomes for whom such food is a necessity