It is not everyday you get to read the first-hand account of what it is like to be a hawker in Singapore.

So, it is a breath of fresh air when there is a Singaporean hawker-entrepreneur who has taken some time out to share about what really goes on in the cutthroat F&B industry here.

Amoy Street Food Centre: A Noodle Story

A popular Singapore-style ramen hawker stall, A Noodle Story at Amoy Street Food Centre, has put up a Facebook post to address the public about a sensitive topic -- price increase:

However, unlike most announcements, the post explains the rationale for the price increase in context, with the individual ingredient retail prices broken down and accompanied by a message of hope for hawker assistants everywhere.

What the post is about

The post starts off by questioning if the envy of hawkers appearing to be making a lot of money is even accurate.

After deducting the costs of running a hawker business from the revenue, the reality of the work and the payoff is rather stark: Take-home wage per person is about S$72 for 10 to 12 hours of backbreaking work a day at a relatively popular stall.

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Low hawker food price unfair

The post then goes on to explain that the ridiculously low hawker food prices in Singapore, say, S$3.50 for chicken rice, comes at hidden costs.

This sort of artificially depressed prices come at the expense of hawkers and the stall assistants, who slog hard day after day for very little and often unfair remuneration.

Moreover, plenty of such stall assistants get stuck in a vicious cycle of low pay and tough work, as a lot of them are not as well-educated and do not know their rights.

They also make do with no Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions and no entitlements, such as sick leave and insurance.

Some take home as little as S$1,800 a month, working more than the stipulated hours asked of normal employees.

The solution

In a move that can be described as radical transparency, A Noodle Story then listed the retail prices of the ingredients used in its popular noodle dish to give customers a sense of how much a bowl is when deconstructed:

?Noodles - $2 (crafted exclusively to my specifications and seasoned with imported dried shrimps and kelp that cost $97/kg.) ?Whole Egg - $1.50 (I use USA-patented pasteurized egg that cost double the price of ordinary eggs.) ?Cha-su per slice- $1.30 (Premium pork belly cut that is slow-braised for 36 hours.) ?Wonton per piece - $0.80 (Jumbo-size wontons made with fresh 100% fresh Indonesian Pork with huge chucks of shrimps.) ?Potato-wrapped Prawn - $1.30 (Crispy prawn fritter that is fried-to-order in fresh veg oil everyday.) (Note: Each dish has two pieces of wonton and cha-su each) Total retail price: S$9.00

The post then said it will be raising the prices of its small and medium bowls to S$8 and S$11 respectively.

The previous prices were S$7 and S$9 respectively.

The additional amounts customers pay will go towards the wages and benefits for the hawker assistants.

(It is understood that cost price is half of retail price, but does not take into account the rental, utilities, manpower, equipment and maintenance.)

A Noodle Story is co-founded by Gwern Khoo and Ben Tham (pictured above). The hawker stall was started on Feb. 17, 2013.

It has been on the Bib Gourmand list of Singapore's Michelin Guide since 2016.