While we chase efficiency, will we sacrifice identity and autonomy?

Professor Brawn Cafe’s last day of operations. Credits: Raffles Institution Instagram Page

At the end of last year, Professor Brawn Cafe, a presence in RI since 2018, ceased operations at our school. This departure did not come as a surprise to many — a few months earlier, Principal Mr Aaron Loh made a last-ditch appeal to students to continue supporting the establishment. Despite many Rafflesians’ enthusiastic patronage, their efforts ultimately came to naught. 

Professor Brawn’s situation is not unique. Three in five schools have reported being unable to find new vendors, while continuing to lose existing stallholders. As schools switch to the new system, we are faced with a deeper question: in fixing the system, what do we stand to gain — and lose?

What are the challenges that stallholders face?

Despite paying nominal rent, stallholders still face “razor-thin” margins due to other constraints.

Rayner Tan, a 27-year old former stallholder at Mee Toh School. He has since opened a pop-up at Katong Shopping Centre. Credits: CNA Lifestyle 

In a recent interview with 8days, Mr Rayner Tan, a 27-year-old stallholder at Mee Toh School, was quoted as saying that “he’s required to keep his prices under S$2.50. As such, he makes less than S$1 for each plate of food he sells.” Factoring in costs such as utilities, stallholders are forced to work with extremely narrow margins. Furthermore, unlike regular hawkers, meals must comply with the Ministry of Education’s (MOE’s) strict guidelines on nutrition, leading to the added cost of “healthier” ingredients such as brown rice. 

Stallholders face another fundamental constraint — time. Unlike hawkers, who may sell their dishes all-year-round, canteen vendors are only able to open their stalls during the school term, leading to significant downtime — and lost profits — during weekends and school holidays. 

Taken together, these factors ultimately explain why many vendors have bowed out of the system, and why many potential operators have chosen not to enter the school canteen business, leading to an increasing shortage of canteen vendors.

How can central kitchens mitigate these issues?

The Central Kitchen Management Model (CKMM) has, for some time, been seen as a viable alternative to existing canteens in most schools due to its ability to produce food en masse.

One key way, central kitchens mitigate manpower shortages across schools. With many schools facing canteen staff shortages, canteens may struggle to produce sufficient food during peak periods, leaving some students unable to get their meals during late-afternoon breaks — a problem familiar to many Rafflesians. In addition, when a stall catering to specific dietary requirements is unable to operate on a given day, schools may be forced to make last-minute alternative arrangements, introducing unnecessary disruption and uncertainty. In contrast, central kitchens are staffed at scale, which reduces reliance on individual operators, and ensures that no student is left without a meal. 

Beyond manpower, central kitchens tackle the issue of cost. Unlike vendors, central kitchens benefit from economies of scale, as they prepare food not just for schools, but for multiple establishments as well. As such, these companies enjoy large discounts on produce, allowing them to keep prices low for students while ensuring quality.

At an operational level, central kitchens reduce the issue of long waiting times. Under the CKMM, students collect their meals from pre-stocked lockers. This process expedites the time needed for students to wait in line, giving them more time to eat and relax during their breaks. 

Together, these factors have led to many schools seeing the CKMM as an attractive alternative to their canteens. However, what might we overlook when we eventually roll out the central kitchens?

A cultural shift, an intangible loss…

The canteen has long been a treasured part of school culture. Many fondly recall their school days enjoying a bowl of noodles or a plate of fried rice at a much cheaper price than a coffee shop or hawker centre. Many even remember the faces of their stall vendors, so much so that some even invited their canteen vendors to prepare their wedding dinners. 

In fact, the canteen has never been merely a facility to feed hungry students. It was one of the first places, if not the first place, where many students bought food independently. It was a safe space where students could learn how to budget their allowance to pick — and if necessary, save up for — their favourite meals. Unlike a public hawker centre, canteens operate at a much slower pace, affording students still learning how to use money a few extra seconds to count and sort out their coins and banknotes. 

With the advent of the CKMM, the friendly aunties and uncles of canteen stalls will be replaced by the faceless touchscreen of a food locker. The experience of counting and sorting purple $2, green $5, and red $10 notes will become one of swiping an EZ-Link card on a reader. The joy of picking a dish from a menu will become the mundane act of popping a locker open to collect another bento box. While we chase efficiency, will we trade away the identity of canteen vendors and the autonomy of students to budget and purchase their own food? 

Ways we can support our vendors

In a press release from the Ministry of Education, it was stated that the “Individual Stallholder System remains the primary canteen model in most schools. MOE will continue efforts to support all schools regardless of their canteen operating system, including seeking favourable utility rates, maintaining nominal rental fees, and regularly reviewing food pricing guidelines to ensure business viability.”

Another idea put forward by Mr Rayner Tan is “a more hybrid model where stall vendors [do not] just sell to the school, but also the public.”  This would allow stallholders to sell their food to the general public after school hours through food delivery apps, allowing them to reach a larger customer base, and significantly boost their income. Selling food online would also allow stallholders to operate on the weekends and during the school holidays, avoiding the long periods of downtime that stallholders face.

MOE could consider working with the National Environment Agency (NEA) to promote the use of canteen stalls as “incubation stalls” under the latter’s Hawker Development Programme. Through this scheme, aspiring hawkers can enjoy the competitive rental rates that canteen stalls offer while still honing their operating skills before entering the larger hawker market. 

To address the issue of long queues, schools could invest in cashless payment methods to speed up the transaction process. RI has recently installed Smart Buddy card readers in both the canteen and Chill@RI to facilitate smoother payments. This has reduced a significant amount of time that stallholders need to spend sorting through different banknotes and coins. 

Furthermore, (ironically) taking inspiration from the CKMM, schools can roll out a pre-ordering system in their canteens. After uploading their menus on the app, students can order and make their payments for their meals in advance. As such, during their breaks, students can flash their orders to the canteen vendors and pick up their meals quickly. This model would still allow students to interact with stallholders, while speeding up the collection process and shortening waiting times for students. In addition, with a set number of meals to cook each day, each stallholder can more accurately predict the number of meals he or she needs to prepare each day, reducing wastage while ensuring students will still receive food each day. 

Every bit of support counts

In conclusion, central kitchens will inevitably continue to increase their footprints across schools in Singapore. However, our stallholders — not just food vendors, but essential members of every school’s family — deserve our continued support. Perhaps as Rafflesians, we can play our part by supporting our school’s canteen vendors. Instead of going to Junction 8 for lunch, how about swinging by Lee’s Japanese Food for a bowl of shoyu beef ramen or having a plate of chicken rice from Koh’s Chicken Rice? Through these small acts of support, we can continue to help our canteen vendors sustain their operations and continue to be part of our Rafflesian family.