Building Sustainable Cities
Why this third-gen boss put the family food business second, and food waste first
Singapore’s food bank pioneer hopes to curb tendency to toss food – with a little help from inflation and donations
The Food Bank Singapore co-founder Nicholas Ng was influenced by his mother, who was an active volunteer for over 15 years at the Lions Home for the Elders.
PHOTO: THARM SOOK WAI
Rachel Chia, Content STudio
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Persistent inflation is bad news for most, with many feeling the pinch of paying more for food and groceries.
But one man sees a silver lining: People care more about how much food – and by extension, hard-earned cash – they are wasting, says Mr Nicholas Ng, 43, co-founder of local charity The Food Bank Singapore (FBSG).
“This year, behaviour has changed a little because of food security,” he says. “People are trying to waste less because they're trying to save money.”
This is likely also good for the environment, given that the Republic generated 813,000 tonnes of food waste in 2022, according to data from the National Environment Agency. Of that, only 18 per cent was recycled.
“A lot of times, consumers don't have the habit of asking for less,” says Mr Ng. “They don't ask for less rice, they just don’t touch what they can’t eat. They order 20 dishes at a restaurant, when they can only finish five.”
Businesses, too, are guilty of throwing away perfectly fine food. “In Singapore, we have at least 500 food distributors, so even if everybody has only one carton of unsold food a month to throw, that’s already 6,000 cartons a year.
“Singapore imports 90 per cent of its food, yet so much goes to the incinerator to be burned every day. What we waste is just so much, it's (a mountain) bigger than Bukit Timah Hill.”
Mr Ng speaks from first-hand experience. He is the third-generation boss of food distributor FoodXervices, which supplies a range of fresh, frozen and dried food goods to consumers and businesses.
Together with his sister Nichol, 44, they founded FBSG in 2012 after noticing how much food was thrown away in the course of doing business.
For example, customers avoided buying canned food six months from its “best before” date, leading to cartons being discarded.
In response, the siblings started Singapore’s first food bank, modelled on successful food banks in the US, to create a place where households and companies could donate food with a shorter shelf life to those who need it.
‘Everybody has to eat’
Taking excess food and giving it to the hungry makes sense, but getting a food bank off the ground was tricky.
At first, with contributions from the family business, the siblings thought it would be easy to secure donations from industry peers, as they had supplier relationships with large food and beverage multinationals.
“We thought we’d send out a few emails, companies would donate 10 pallets of food, and we’d just use our own trucks to give it out,” says Mr Ng. “That didn't work.”
Many were reluctant to donate, fearing lawsuits if people fell ill after eating the donated food. And while FBSG’s 14 staff today work with over 300 social service organisations to reach some 300,000 food-insecure individuals a year, no one was keen to accept the food initially.
“We had to go to schools, to charities, saying ‘I want to give you food, are you willing to take any?’. Nobody knew about us and nobody trusted us,” says Mr Ng. “We had to go out and literally sell ourselves.”
“FBSG was supposed to take up 20 per cent of our time – and the family business, 80 per cent. But because we had to do all this advocacy work, it ended up taking over our lives.”
Why pour time and energy into what began as a simple corporate social responsibility idea? Mr Ng cites the influence of his 66-year-old mother, a homemaker, who brought her children to weekly volunteer sessions at eldercare homes when they were younger.
There was also the Ngs’ experience with fluctuating fortunes: The multimillion-dollar global goods trading conglomerate Ng Chye Mong – founded by Mr Ng’s grandfather in 1939 – collapsed during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, decimating the family finances.
Mr Ng and his sister bought over the sole surviving food distribution business from their father and uncle in 2007, with plans to modernise it.
By 2019, it had grown into a $65 million portfolio of food-related companies serving 5,000 clients locally, including Shake Shack, Marina Bay Sands and Singapore Airlines.
“Whether you're rich or you're poor, everybody has to eat. Being in the food business, this is something quite dear to us,” says Mr Ng. “The family has gone through ups and downs, so we can relate.”
Appetite for change
Both small and large businesses realise the importance of embracing sustainability for profit and purpose, says UOB’s Business Outlook Study 2023.
Conducted between December and January, UOB surveyed 823 companies in Singapore to gather sentiments on adopting sustainability practices. Here are some key findings.
- 85%
of larger companies with turnover of over $5 million say environmental, social and governance considerations are important to business
- Over 3 in 10
Businesses have implemented sustainable practices that give back to the community, with nearly four in 10 implementing practices to make efficient use of resources and minimise waste
- 1 in 2
businesses in the wholesale trade sector have implemented sustainability practices – the highest rate among all industries
Evolving further
A decade of perseverance later, FBSG is one of Singapore’s most prominent food charities, and has gone beyond saving excess food from the incinerator to offering cooked meals to the needy.
“ESG (environmental, social and governance) is not just about saving the environment. There’s also the social element,” says Mr Ng.
To handle increased food donations in recent years, The Food Bank Singapore is leveraging technology to automate the process of matching foodstuffs with the social service agencies who need them.
PHOTO: THARM SOOK WAI
He cites feedback from social service partners that led the charity to install vending machines across Singapore that dispense hot bentos and dried food items. Currently, there are 40 vending machines installed at 14 locations, with plans to further expand.
FBSG also signed partnerships with establishments like Fei Siong and Subway to let beneficiaries buy meals by tapping ‘bank’ cards preloaded with credits.
“Families don't want to feel like they are waiting at home for rations. Going to the mall for a meal sounds like a simple thing, but it builds up their confidence,” says Mr Ng.
Then there was the record number of donations and requests for food that FBSG coordinated during the Covid-19 pandemic, as businesses were forced to shutter while families who lost financial stability struggled.
“Within the first three to six months of Covid, we had the highest amount of donations of all time. Every supplier was calling us,” says Mr Ng. “Basically, a lot of food was going to be wasted.”
Don’t toss that out
- Nearly 700,000 kg
Volume of dried and cooked food donated to FBSG in 2022, over one-third of which came from industrial donors
- > 2.2 million
Equivalent meals redistributed through a network of 370 social service organisations to 300,000 food-insecure individuals annually
- Over $570,000
Estimated value of food redeemed by beneficiaries from eateries through FBSG’s bank card programme
Mr Ng is hoping more donations will pour in if Singapore passes a proposed Good Samaritan Food Donation Bill into law, which will indemnify donors. The bill was mooted in Parliament in 2020 by Member of Parliament (MP) Louis Ng.
As a member of a working committee on sustainability chaired by MP Ng, FBSG’s Mr Ng is also pushing for new legislation on tax deductions for food donations.
“What we have seen in the US is that tax deductions on goods-in-kind results in a surge of donations. People already feel it’s the right thing to do, and (with the proposed legislation) they’ll have an incentive to do it,” says FBSG’s Mr Ng.
Eventually, he hopes his charity will “close down because we have no more food wastage”.
FoodXervices is also doing its part by using artificial intelligence to better forecast demand and reduce unsold stock.
The company has also adopted a slew of sustainability measures, such as the recycling of food waste, cardboard boxes and clingfilm, and the installation of solar panels.
For Mr Ng, who often eats leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, it’s the small things that add up.
“There are plenty of people that are afraid of sustainability and keep thinking it is costly. Everybody always thinks too big,” he says. “But you can do a lot of small things that don't cost any money. Even recycling boxes doesn't cost anything. Don't be afraid.”
Building Sustainable Cities is a series sharing insights on how individuals and businesses can take action to forge a cleaner, greener tomorrow.
This is the last of a five-part series in partnership with
