S$2 bak kut teh, S$1 nasi lemak: How do some hawkers offer cheap, filling meals despite rising costs?

SINGAPORE: At 11am, the queue at Lai Heng was already forming. 

The hawker stall at Kim Keat Palm Market and Hawker Centre in Toa Payoh is known for its cheap economy rice. Even after the stall raised its prices recently, you can still get rice with one meat and two vegetables at S$2.70 (US$2).

Madam Tan Beng Cheok, 73, who has been running the stall for more than 10 years, said the town has many elderly people and she caters to them.

Some order rice with just two vegetables and she charges them S$1.80.

When asked how she makes a profit with such low prices, Mdm Tan said in Mandarin: “I have to sell a lot. If the food is cheap, more people will come.”

Singapore offers a plethora of cheap, tasty hawker food, but with food costs rising, getting a substantial meal for under S$3 can be a challenge. 

While the government rolled out a budget meal scheme that will be expanded to all coffee shops leased from the Housing Board by 2026, the implementation of the programme has been uneven, as CNA found in an earlier report.

Hawkers CNA spoke to cited rising costs that squeeze their profits, and many said it was difficult to price their meals at S$3 or S$3.50.

But some food stalls offer meals even cheaper than that. CNA spoke to these hawkers and asked how they manage to provide good food at low prices.

S$1 NASI LEMAK

At a coffee shop just a short walk from Lai Heng, Kedai Makan Muhajirin sells nasi lemak for S$1 and has been doing so for more than three decades.

Xian Jin Mixed Vegetable Rice in Bedok was also recently featured in online articles for selling bak kut teh at S$2. It offers fish soup and seafood soup at that price too, as well as low-priced economy rice.

Food at hawker centres is generally priced lower than coffee shops or food courts, according to the Makan Index, an Institute of Policy (IPS) study on hawker food.

Dr Teo Kay Key, one of the researchers in the study, said they found that hawker centres usually have multiple stalls selling the same dishes, such as chicken rice. With more stalls offering the same food, hawkers are under pressure to keep prices low, she said.

Hawker centre stalls also tend to pay lower rents than coffee shop or food court stalls.

A check of successful tenders for hawker centre cooked food stalls in February 2023 found that rents can go for as low as S$50 and as high as S$6,000 a month, but most were in the range of a few hundred dollars to S$3,000.

The median rental across unsubsidised cooked food stalls has remained at about S$1,250 a month since 2018, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Amy Khor said in March this year.

Subsidised rates are much lower as these were offered as incentives in the 1970s and early 1980s to encourage street hawkers to move to hawker centres.

The hawkers also have to pay operational costs that include table cleaning fees and utilities, which can add up to a few thousand dollars a month, depending on the location and usage.

Coffee shop stallholders told CNA that their rent, cleaning fees, utilities and other charges add up to S$5,000 to S$7,000 a month, and even S$10,000 at a central location.

When asked how much her costs were a month, Lai Heng's Mdm Tan said her rent was about S$3,000 for two hawker centre stalls. She gave some other cost estimates but eventually laughed and said: “I don’t keep track … whatever I have left at the end of the month is what I earn.”

She said that 2022 was a “good year” and she made about S$70,000, which is “enough”. This is slightly higher than Singapore’s median income, but Mdm Tan works from 4am to late evening, six days a week.

Mr Mohamed Haji Rin, 41, who runs Kedai Makan Muhajirin with his parents, said that the coffee shop their stall is located in charges relatively lower rents. Items other than their S$1 nasi lemak that they sell also help to cover the cost, he said.

He also pointed out that Toa Payoh has many seniors who may not be able to afford expensive food.

“We have a lot of regulars, elderly customers … the S$1 nasi lemak, we have never increased the price, because it’s for the community and also it’s our trademark.”

His parents have asked him not to raise the price of the nasi lemak when he takes over, he added. But as costs increased, they have upped prices for other dishes this year, some for the first time in 36 years, he said.

“Before we raised the price, we asked our customers - we did a poll,” he said. “Most of them said: 'Please ah, increase lah. We don’t want you all to suffer, then make a loss, then close the shop.'”

STALLHOLDERS NEED MORE HELP: HAWKER

But with costs rising, some coffee shop stallholders said their businesses were struggling. 

Some have voiced their reluctance to offer budget meals, usually at S$3 to S$3.50, which is required at some coffee shops leased from the Housing and Development Board. This was reflected in some of their menus, with some offering side dishes, small portions or scant ingredients in their budget meals.

Mr Daniel Tan, who runs halal chains OK Chicken Rice and Humfull Prawn Laksa, is offering budget meals of between S$2, for tau pok laksa, and S$3.50, for chicken cutlet rice. While this started because Mr Tan was required to sell a budget meal at one stall located in a HDB-rented coffee shop, he’s extended it to all his stalls.

But he said that many stalls out of the 15 he runs are in the red, and he has closed five outlets this year. This is partly because of a sharp rise in the prices of chickens after Malaysia suspended the supply of live chickens last year.

He thinks hawkers need more help if they are to keep prices low. While the HDB-leased coffee shops will get rental discounts on renewing their tenancies, Mr Tan is concerned that this will not be passed down to hawkers.

“Whatever (the government) is doing is good, but whatever help you’re providing, can you ensure that it gets to the right people?” he said. “Get the help to the stall owners if you want them to lower prices.”

The Ministry of National Development and HDB have said they are working with merchants to understand their considerations, and how they can help to refine implementation on the ground for the budget meal options.

IPS researcher Dr Teo said there is existing pressure to keep hawker food prices low, partly because of public expectations, as hawker meals have always been seen as an affordable option for the masses.

“We also have to remember that stallholders are not running a charity, they are trying to (earn) a living too,” she said.

“Because we all eat out quite a bit, so these do affect our living costs … But both sides need to remember that we are all facing the same kind of rising cost of living and inflation.”