Can small school canteen operators survive the onslaught of central kitchens despite non-proliferation assurances? |
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On 3 February, Senior Minister of State for Education, Ms Jasmin Lau, has clarified in Parliament that MOE has no intention of rolling out the central kitchen model to all schools, and that it will remain an option only for schools that genuinely struggle to attract stallholders. Such an assurance is important, but for me, it sits uneasily with how the policy has actually evolved: a single pilot at Yusof Ishak Secondary has already become a 13‑school network with appointed operators and distribution systems built into the school day. The key issue is not whether central kitchens exist, but how the overall system is being reshaped. Over a few short years, we have moved from a landscape where each school canteen was run by individual stallholders to a mixed regime where a small number of large vendors now serve multiple schools under long‑term contracts. That shift changes who has bargaining power. Principals and parents become more dependent on a few providers. Those providers, in turn, gain more influence over menus, operating practices and pricing, within the broad guidelines set by MOE. In practical terms, we are moving from canteens where the “chicken rice uncle” or “western food aunty” know the children they serve, to a system where meals arrive in bulk, labelled and tray‑packed, whether they are headed to a primary school, an office or a worksite. The new parliamentary line also creates a benchmark that Singaporeans can and should track. When Ms Lau says there is “no intention to scale [the central kitchen model] to all schools, nor any target in mind”, that commitment ought to be anchored to concrete numbers: how many schools are on the central kitchen model this year, how many remain on the stallholder model, and what proportion of meals are being supplied through each route. Without such reporting, “no intention” risks becoming a statement about today’s mood rather than a real constraint on tomorrow’s decisions. We have seen in other policy areas how pilots can, over time, become the default. The move from one pilot school to 13 schools suggests a similar trajectory unless there are clear guardrails. At the same time, the way we treat different providers remains uneven. Central kitchen operators receive contracts that recognise the full cost of running a large‑scale operation – logistics, cold chain, manpower, compliance, business continuity – and are paid on that basis. Stallholders are told their rents are kept low - this coupled with heavily subsidised utilities, but they still have to absorb higher ingredient prices, manpower challenges as well as endure thin margins while keeping student meals at S$2.50 or less, particularly at primary schools. Besides, the smallest players are effectively asked to shoulder the most volatility, while larger players are cushioned by structured agreements. It is not hard to see why more potential stallholders choose to walk away, especially when they can see industrial kitchens turning out thousands of portions at one go. The big question now is whether small school canteens can realistically keep up with large industrial vendors – and if not, what we are prepared to do about it. If the answer is simply to let “the market” decide, we should at least be honest about the destination: recess turning into a service window for central production, with standardised meals rolled out across many schools because that is how the contracts are written. If we believe there is value in having stallholders onsite – people who notice when a child is not eating well, who adjust portions, who experiment with a dish because students asked for it – then it is no longer enough to say that the stallholder model is “primary and predominant”. If Ms Lau and the Government are serious about making that commitment, it will have to introduce structural support that reflects today’s realities. That could include direct operating assistance tied to meal volumes, access to shared purchasing so stallholders can benefit from some of the bulk‑buying advantages of large vendors, and carefully designed pilots that allow canteens to serve nearby residents or workers after school hours under strict security protocols. Other essential but low‑margin services in Singapore, such as preschools and childcare, already receive such structural support. There is no clear reason why the people feeding our children every day should be treated as an exception. The parliamentary clarification has drawn a line on paper. The real test will be whether future decisions on school food models respect that line, and whether at least as much effort is invested in keeping the decentralised, stallholder‑based system viable as has already gone into building up the central kitchen network. I believe the answer will show whether central kitchens remain a genuine back‑up for difficult cases, or slowly become the norm while small canteens fade away in the shadow of larger industrial kitchens. This first appeared as a post on the Facebook page of Mr Harish Mohanadas on 4 February 2026. Do join in the discussion over there if you have thoughts to share. |
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