KF Seetoh slams NEA for pushing and recommending food delivery apps ‘knowing that the bulk of hawkers here cannot afford to pay the 20-35% commission’

Singapore — Local food guru and advocate for everything hawker KF Seetoh called out the National Environment Agency (NEA) on Monday (Jul 12) for trying to get hawkers to sign up for food delivery apps despite knowing that the latter is not able to afford to pay commission.

In a Facebook post, Mr Seetoh griped: “Incredible. They went ahead to do it anyway. Knowing that the bulk of hawkers here cannot afford the 20-35% commissions from delivery apps, they pushed on to recommend such apps to them”.

Adding that hawkers only make about 12 per cent profit from their food, and the apps require them to pay a 20 per cent to 35 per cent commission rate, Mr Seetoh wrote: “i (sic) don’t understand how this complex decision came about from the exalted thinkers and leaders…when they know hawkers cannot afford it”.

Sharing an SG Digital flyer that touted the various food delivery platforms, Mr Seetoh noted that the “more logical ones” were missing.

“Some charge nothing to hawkers and mark up nothing to customers. There’s also a “social enterprise” delivery service that charges literally , cents, per order, to hawkers and riders”, he wrote.

The SG Digital flyer listed BUNGKUS (with a 25 per cent commission fee), deliveroo (with a 30 per cent commission fee), foodpanda (with up to 30 per cent commission fee, but none for the first month), GrabFood (22 per cent commission fee) and Why Q (no commission fee).

The apps that Mr Seetoh recommended in his pose were Oddle, Milk Run, Tabaojiak, xindots and justdapao.

He wrote: “i (sic) am sure there are more such “common sense” apps out there. Meanwhile do be your own digital avatar and tell hawkers you know about these other apps. so we can all be of help to get all and sundry on the planet Singapore digital”. /TISG