KF Seetoh asserts hawkers also grapple with cost of living squeeze as he weighs in on $10,158 stall bid

SINGAPORE: In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Aug 13), food guru KF Seetoh drew attention to the eye-watering $10,158 hawker stall bid that made the news earlier this week, pointing out that “hawkers also have the same cost of living as the rest of us.”

Mr Seetoh, a longtime champion of Singapore’s hawkers and hawker culture, noted how hawker food culture had been given “an almost 10-minute spotlight” in the National Day show and was “presented to make us proud and yet bond as one nation.”

However, in spite of this, he opined that hawker culture is suppressed and given no support.

Read related: Record-breaking bid of over $10,000 for Marine Parade stall raises eyebrows among hawkers

He added that while the $10,158 bid had been accepted at Marine Parade Food Centre in the latest hawker stall bidding exercise in July, hawkers are still required to offer budget meals for about S$3.00, which is meant for the less needy. However, those who can well afford pricier meals take advantage of this. The provision for inexpensive meals causes diners to become “entitled hyenas who demand the sun, moon, earth, wind and fire for $3 or $3.50,” he added.

What authorities could do, but don’t, continued Mr Seetoh, is to appeal to diners, telling them that “cheap meals are essentially for the displaced, poor, needy and those on tight budgets” and that hawkers are bending over backward in these high-cost inflationary times in order to help them.

They should also be told publicly: “Please do not expect more than they can afford to offer. Buy the standard full meals if you can. The hawkers also have the same cost of living as the rest of us” and that their operations are not subsidized, he added.

The Makansutra founder even wrote that operating a hawker food business in New York is less expensive than the “greedy highest-bid-gets-the-stall operation model” back home.

He also asserted that some of the policies governing running hawker stalls were “heartless.”

In May, Mr Seetoh wrote an article published on the Makansutra website titled “The Problem with Hawkers” that listed in detail the challenges that hawkers today face daily. As the piece was written at around the same time Mr Wong took office, Singapore’s Fo0d Guru made the following appeal: “A new generation of leadership is afoot, please have a big rethink on this, I urge you.” /TISG

Read also: Amy Khor’s 2018 claim that stall rentals do not affect food prices resurfaces online