Forum: Biggest challenge hawkers face is economics, not consumer culture

I was disappointed to read senior columnist Chua Mui Hoong’s commentary “

Hawker culture debate: The missing ingredient is our willingness to pay

” (Nov 23).

The biggest challenges our hawkers face today have to do with straightforward economics, not consumer culture.

Coffee shops changing hands for millions of dollars shows that many investors see coffee shops as speculative assets to be flipped, rather than businesses to be operated. Stall operators have suffered from large arbitrary rent increases in such coffee shops.

The difficulties hawkers face in privately run socially conscious enterprise-model hawker centres are also well documented.

While I acknowledge that some consumers may display an entitled attitude towards price increases, comparisons with higher-end products such as ramen are inappropriate and insensitive towards the less well-off among us who may already be struggling with other cost-of-living increases.

In her book Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food, published by the National Environment Agency, author Lily Kong noted that hawker centres “play a role in moderating increases in food prices, thereby performing an important social service”.

The genuine economic challenges hawkers face due to rental increases that may force them to increase food prices should be highlighted, rather than just asking if consumers are willing to pay more to keep hawker culture sustainable.

 
Linus Chen Jin An