With more hawker centres opening, a new generation of Singapore hawkers will emerge to fill the demand with more opportunities arising. If you are one of these vendor hopefuls looking for a potential hawker stall, read this before you take the plunge into Singapore’s nitty-gritty F&B hawker industry.

1. Not all Hawker Centres In Singapore Are Government-Owned & Managed

107 markets/hawker centres in Singapore are managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA), who is responsible for tenancies, licensing and public health aspects of nearly 15,000 cooked food and market stalls. Out of these 107 centres, 82 are owned by the Housing Development Board (HDB).

Some hipster hawker centers are privately owned like Kopitiam’s Lau Pa Sat and the Limbang Wet Market in Choa Chu Kang.

The government has pledged to build 20 more hawker centres to be managed by social enterprises.

Fei Siong Food Management currently manages a hawker centre in Hougang.

NTUC Foodfare is managing the Bedok Interchange Hawker Centre and the upcoming Bukit Panjang Hawker Centre which will open in the last quarter of 2015.

2. New Hawker Stall Tenders are Announced Through Mainstream Media & NEA Website

To learn about new hawker centre tenders for social enterprise-run hawker centres, these announcements are usually made over local mainstream media like Straits Times, Lianhe Zao Bao, Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu.

For government-owned hawker stalls under NEA, a monthly tender exercise is offered to the general public in the middle of each month. Only Singaporeans/Permanent Residents not less than 21 years of age are allowed to tender.

Other sources to learn about new hawker stall announcements can also be found from NEA’s website.

3. Read the tender details carefully

You can get tender documents from the relevant management authority’s office (e.g. NEA, NTUC Foodfare) for a non-refundable fee of $10.

Together with the application, you need to enclose a one month deposit of the tendered rent as a Cashier’s Order to the designated management company, but it will not be cashed until successful tender. Failed tenderers will be returned their Cashier’s Order.

NEA will forfeit your tender deposit if you don’t commence operations within 3 months of signing the tenancy agreement, and may even terminate your tenancy and debar you from future tenders.

For NTUC Foodfare tenders, you’ll lose your tender deposit if you withdraw the tender after the closing date, but before the award of tender is announced.

So if you’re not serious about being a hawker, don’t anyhow play play and submit a tender.

4. Potential Hawker Stalls Are Chosen Not Just On Price

For some tenders, due to the demand for hawker stall spots as well as to ensure quality of stalls, there is of course, an evaluation process based other than purely price.

At NTUC Foodfare’s new Bukit Panjang Hawker Centre for example, the evaluation criteria will be based on a scorecard with 40% for tendered rent, and 60% for quality, variety, selling price, experience and concept.

Shortlisted cooked food stall tenderers will also be required to participate in a food tasting exercise by a panel including grassroots representatives from the neighborhood. Maybe Gordon Ramsay will fly down to taste as well, just kidding!

Usually a mix of famous stalls, long running brands as well as young hawkerpreneurs apply as well resulting in high competition and oversubscription; Foodfare will have to look thru all of the other concept criteria (Pricing, Food Variety, Concept, Experience) first before shortlisting a select group of hawkers, which will then go thru another round of selection via the food tasting exercise mentioned.

5. You Can “Sublet” Out Your Stall Under These Terms

Since 1 April 2012, you cannot sublet or assign your stall for a full day to anyone else.

This means you still have to personally operate your stall, but you can have a joint operator if each of you personally operates the stall for at least half a day.

View photos revised-hawker-policies-singapore-2 More

Story continues