Cold Storage expands tie-up with food charity to help needy families

Cold Storage will expand its collaboration with The Food Bank Singapore to provide needy families with food, including fresh produce.

Under the Better Together programme launched in 2020, the supermarket chain donates non-perishable items such as canned food to the food charity that serves 300,000 beneficiaries, including children from low-income families.

Yesterday, Cold Storage said the expanded partnership will start with beneficiaries in Sengkang and include fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables.

More details on the partnership will be available later.

Ms Nichol Ng, co-founder of The Food Bank Singapore, said: "As far as possible, we hope to reduce instances of food insecurity in Singapore and it is by working with partners like Cold Storage that we can grant more people accessibility to a wider and healthier range of food on a daily basis."

A study published in 2020 by the Singapore Management University Lien Centre for Social Innovation found that about 10 per cent of Singaporeans struggled to get sufficient, safe and nutritious food at least once in 12 months.

Mr Lee Yik Hun, marketing director of South-east Asia food at DFI Retail Group which runs Cold Storage, said: "As a brand that has been synonymous with fresh, quality products for nearly 120 years, we now want to extend the reach of the brand to more communities around Singapore."

He was speaking at the launch of the Cold Storage store at Compass One in Sengkang. The store is the first of 25 that will be refreshed in a $40 million rebranding exercise.

Cold Storage said all 25 of its stores will introduce a monthly list of daily essential items that will be sold at low prices.

The products will be refreshed every month.

A spokesman for Cold Storage said: "This initiative is ahead of the curve and is timely given the impending GST hike.

"Customers can now expect competitive prices at all times across all Cold Storage outlets."

Last Friday, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong announced in his Budget speech that the goods and services tax will increase from 7 per cent to 9 per cent in two stages - by one percentage point each time on Jan 1, 2023, and Jan 1, 2024.