5/11/2020 The Past and Future of Hawker Centres

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The Past and Future of Hawker

Centres
 Published: 26 July 2019  Theme: Planning  Share
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We explore how hawker centres parallel Singapore’s urban
development, and look ahead to how hawkers will navigate the By Themes
next chapter of their history.
- Future Economy
- Heritage
- Mobility
- Nature
- Planning
- Smart Planning

Related
The outdoor crowd at East Coast Lagoon Food Village (Image: Ar cles
Na onal Environment Agency)

Hawker food is an important part of Singapore culture. But its

Future Economy
ubiquity in our daily lives o en leads us to take it for granted. The
Na onal Environment Agency’s (NEA) Percep on Survey of Feeding Ci es of
Hawker Centre Patrons 2018 (PSHCP 2018) found that hawker the Future with
centres were respondents’ top choice for ea ng out and the
Agricultural
Technology
amenity with the second-highest number of votes (a er public
transport), when asked which three ameni es in their Technological
neighbourhood were most important to them. advancements and
reliable infrastructure
have enabled ci es like
Beyond its u lity, hawker food is also a symbol of our heritage and Singapore to grow food
iden ty. Singapore recently nominated “Hawker Culture in very differently.
Singapore” to the UNESCO Representa ve List of Intangible  13 November 2018
Cultural Heritage of Humanity. As we herald Hawker Culture as
central to our Singapore’s history and iden ty, it is fi ng to reflect
on its past and future: How did hawking come about? And looking
ahead, where is it headed? Planning
The Past and
Professor Lily Kong, President and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor
Future of Hawker
of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, believes
Centres
that “Hawker Culture reflects and parallels Singapore’s journey
and its urban development”, adding that “it’s in mately ed to We explore how hawker
the way the city has developed and how our lives and urban centres parallel
Singapore’s urban
lifestyle have evolved over me”. development, and look
ahead to how hawkers
This ar cle first looks back in history, outlining how hawkers will navigate the next
moved from pushcarts to planned centres, and tying its evolu on chapter of their history.
closely to Singapore’s urban development. Next, we an cipate  26 July 2019

what tomorrow’s strategies and trends – from the Dra Master

Plan, to e-payments and food deliveries – hold for the future of
hawking.
Heritage
30 Years of
Pushcarts, Food Centres and Na onal Icons Conserva on in
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5/11/2020 The Past and Future of Hawker Centres

Hawker food first arrived in the nineteenth century with the influx Singapore since
of immigrants to the Malayan Peninsula. These immigrants found 1989: Ge ng
work in ports, planta ons and mines. Cheap and convenient meals Ready
were in great demand by manual labourers. This need was met by Even in the midst of
i nerant hawkers, who served up a variety of dishes. urgent urban renewal
efforts in the 1960s,
A er World War II, three-quarters of the popula on were Alan Choe, the first
General Manager of the
crammed into the city centre. Street hawkers congregated in
Urban Renewal Unit had
hotspots, with the ensuing crowds blocking out en re streets to dra conserva on plans
traffic. Unsanitary food prepara on and improper waste disposal in the drawer.
led to public health concerns, as hawkers were linked with cholera  14 November 2019

and typhoid outbreaks1. This was compounded by i neracy,

making hawkers vectors for the spread of disease2.

But the problem was also an opportunity. In 1965, the newly Planning
independent government embarked on a plan to redevelop the Ci zen
city centre, which was then filled with slums, into a business Par cipa on: The
district. To do this, it first needed to create new homes outside Soul of Seoul
the city centre and relocate the popula on living in the city there.
When the Housing and Development Board (HDB) started building Seoul, the winner of the
Lee Kuan Yew World
public housing in the 1970s, urban planners sited centralised City Prize 2018, shows
hawker centres in housing estates3. Registra on for hawkers was how ci zens as leaders
introduced around the same me, transplan ng once-i nerant of their own city can
transform everyday
hawkers into state-built hawker centres. This was the birth of spaces and major
hawker centres as we know it today. Hawkers were thus relocated streets.
along with most of the resident popula on into new housing  12 July 2018
estates outside the city centre.

The entrance of Bedok Food Centre (Image: Na onal Environment

Agency)

Over me, hawker centres evolved beyond food centres to

become a symbol of heritage and culture. A notable example is
Newton Food Centre, built in 1971. The architecture and
landscape at the food centre recreated the atmosphere of the
planta ons that once dominated the area. Another notable
example is Bedok Food Centre, which is located in an area that
used to be a Malay kampung. The design concept was based on a
Malay theme, including the entrance roof inspired by the
Minangkabau style of architecture, as well as lush tropical
vegeta on to evoke the feeling of a kampung.

Planning and Hawking

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5/11/2020 The Past and Future of Hawker Centres

Urban planning has and will con nue to shape how and when
people interact with spaces, including hawker centres. As we look
ahead, is there further poten al to reimagine the role of hawker
centres in our fast-changing urban environment? In Singapore’s
early independence, ra onal planning transplanted i nerant
hawkers to sites close to residen al and commercial
developments to meet the demand for food.

Today, hawker centres are perceived as inclusive and unifying

spaces – in the PSHCP 2018, 9 in 10 respondents agreed that
hawker centres promote interac ons among people from all walks
of life, and are good places to mix with friends, family and
neighbours. Harnessing this poten al, hawker centres co-located
with social ameni es are now being reimagined as community
hubs that bring people together. One notable example is Kampung
Admiralty, which integrates housing for the elderly with a wide
range of social, healthcare, communal, commercial, and retail
facili es, including a 900-seat hawker centre.

Kampung Admiralty Hawker Centre (Image: MyNiceHome, HDB)

The Central Business District o en sees low human traffic on

weekends, which has prompted many hawkers located within the
area to close their stalls then. This stands in contrast to the long
queues during weekday lunch mes, where hawkers have to work
even faster to meet the demand. The Dra Master Plan 2019
intends to encourage the development of more homes within the
city centre, which might alter demand pa erns for nearby food
and hawker centres. There is also a con nued push to develop
regional hubs to locate more jobs closer to homes, which might
bring larger office lunch crowds to hawker centres in the vicinity.

Future of Hawking: Cashless and on Wheels

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5/11/2020 The Past and Future of Hawker Centres

A hawker stall at Tekka Market on Serangoon Road (Image:

Shankar S., CC BY 2.0)

Being a hawker has always been difficult, and challenges to their

livelihood – including rising manpower and costs of ingredients –
con nue to mount. How prepared are our hawkers for the
changes on the horizon? We explore two trends in this sec on:
electronic payments and food delivery.

Electronic payments (e-payments)

Central to Singapore’s aspira ons toward a Smart Na on is e-

payments. Food courts have been quick to implement contactless
and mobile payment op ons, giving consumers (especially tourists
and working professionals) greater convenience, and increasing
produc vity for stall owners. Such produc vity enhancements are
par cularly salient to hawkers, who operate on a very lean
manpower model.

But some hawkers are apprehensive, ci ng reasons ranging from

iner a to high upfront costs. “Most elderly hawkers s ll can't
adapt to such changes, but a lot of them are also star ng to learn
more about social media marke ng and e-payments. Younger
genera on hawkers have no problem with all that”, said Melvin
Chew, a second-genera on hawker who runs Jin Ji Teochew
Braised Duck & Kway Chap at Chinatown Complex Food Centre.

Such concerns are inherent to the trade – specialisa on and scale

enables hawkers to start and own a business with rela vely
modest capital. Hawkers are thus cau ous of heavy investments
that curtail their flexible, lean business model. Yet it is precisely
these structural aspects of hawking that make this field ripe for
innova on4, provided hawkers are convinced of the benefits.

Hawkers are more likely to offer e-payments if it becomes the

preferred payment mode for more customers. In September 2018,
Enterprise Singapore, together with NEA, HDB and JTC appointed
NETS as the master acquirer5 to on-board small food
establishments to a unified e-payment ini a ve. To date, 23
providers including DBS PayLah!, GrabPay, EZ-Link, NETS FlashPay,
Visa and Mastercard, have been unified under a single point-of-
sales terminal and a single SGQR label. Over 500 food stalls are
now enabled for e-payment in 22 coffee shops and 10 hawker

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centres na onwide, and more stalls are being added. The unified
e-payment solu on makes it more convenient for customers and
might prove to be the nudge required for widespread adop on.

Food Delivery Apps

Food delivery has been around for a long me (think pizza), but
hawker food has always taken one of two forms: ‘eat here’ or ‘take
out’. Now, a third op on has emerged – ‘order in’ – where one can
order a ‘take-out’ remotely, and have it delivered to your
doorstep. This has the poten al to increase the produc vity of
hawkers by integra ng order and payment, and batching
prepara on of similar orders.

But hawkers are also aware of the poten al downside. “Food

delivery apps help us generate more sales, but there are many
things that can go wrong, like sending the wrong item, late
delivery and more”, Chew explained.

History tells us a story of the adaptability and resilience of Hawker

Culture, evolving to thrive as reloca on and regula on took away
the i nerancy that once defined it. To a ract younger customers,
Chew said he has updated his recipes and presenta on of dishes.
For example, replacing the usual hard-boiled braised egg with an
ajitsuke tamago, and serving in bento boxes, which help with
takeaway orders.

Today’s new genera on of ‘hawkerpreneurs’ are wri ng their own

new chapter of Singapore’s hawking history as they navigate the
changing des of tomorrow’s economy. How Hawker Culture
adapts will con nue to be closely interwoven with the
development of Singapore’s city, culture and people.

By Andrew Tam

References
1. Ghani, Azhar. 2011. A Recipe for Success: How Singapore
Hawker Centres Came to Be. Ins tute of Policy Studies
Update. Na onal University of Singapore.
2. Tarulevicz, Nicole. 2015. I had on me to pick out the
worms: Food adultera on in Singapore, 1900-1973.
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 16(3), 1-24.
3. Lai, Ah Eng. 2010. The Kopi am in Singapore: An Evolving
Story about Migra on and Cultural Diversity. Asia Research
Ins tute Paper Series, no. 132 (January).
4. Tarulevicz, Nicole. 2018. Hawkerpreneurs: Hawkers,
Entrepreneurship, and Reinven ng Street Food in
Singapore. Revista de Administração de Empresas, Vol. 58
No. 3.
5. NETS acts as the main touch point to handle payment
transac ons, facilitates se lement of accounts for
par cipa ng merchants, and handles a er-sale support
and training for merchants.

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