Food situation for families in Singapore and across Asia

A FAMILY IN SINGAPORE: House brands and online shopping help them save
They cut $200 off their monthly food budget, eat out less and reduce wastage
Joanne Lee, Straits Times 5 Apr 08;

NO MORE Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Barilla pasta, Kraft cheddar cheese, Starbucks ground coffee and other brand-name items.

The first thing business development manager Shahrany Hassan, 32, did when rising food prices made headlines in December was to sit down with her husband and downsize their grocery budget.

She had just switched jobs and taken a pay cut to spend more time with her two children, five-year-old Dany and three-year-old Dyna.

Over the last four months, despite the surge in food prices, the family of four managed to cut their weekly food expenditure by 20 per cent - mainly by switching to house brands and eating out less often.

'It was shocking to realise how much we were spending on unnecessary luxuries,' admits Madam Shahrany, who used to enjoy two bottles of Linton Park distilled water every week.

She now drinks boiled tap water like the rest of the family - much to the relief of her husband Jahshruzzman Mohammad Imran, 33, a staff sergeant with the Singapore Armed Forces.

They also switched supermarkets from Cold Storage to NTUC FairPrice in Hougang, which is closer to their five-room HDB flat in Sengkang.

Next, a switch to housebrands for essential items such as sugar and butter. 'It makes such a difference. Now, we buy a branded item only if it's sold at a discount,' she says.

On average, their weekly food bill now comes up to $280. About $120 is spent on groceries, $60 on milk formula, and another $100 on a weekly family outing and inexpensive lunches in their respective workplace canteens.

Previously, they spent over $330 a week on food - which means monthly savings of $200.

With a household income of $7,500, this sum may not seem significant. But Mr Jahshruzzman says the reallocation of the family budget to spending on other things makes a big difference to his young family.

'If buying a lower grade of rice or fewer cans of tuna means a new box of crayons for the children, it's definitely worth it,' he says.

Their new thrift has resulted in other lifestyle changes. Instead of eating out five to six times a week at Swensens and McDonald's, these outings are restricted to once-a-week treats.

They eat more often at hawker centres. They also spend more time together around the dining table eating meals cooked by their Filipino maid.

Another upside: Less wastage. 'We used to cook extra in case my parents popped by to see the kids. But I'm very aware of not cooking too much now,' she says.

Buying frozen meats and fish also helps reduce wastage as items go bad less quickly. Economising has also reduced their weekly trips to the wet market and fortnightly supermarket jaunts. Now, they buy mostly from FairPrice Online.

'I'm an impulse shopper so walking around in the supermarket is very dangerous,' she says. 'Online shopping helps me be more disciplined because I buy only what we really need.'

It helps that since December, NTUC FairPrice - the largest supermarket chain in Singapore - has been offering a 5 per cent rebate on 500 house- brand essentials. Such items are usually 10 to 15 per cent cheaper than brand-name goods. For some products, the difference can be 50 per cent.

According to the Consumer Price Index figures for February, food prices went up 6.7 per cent year on year - one of the largest drivers behind the overall 6.5 per cent figure.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong suggested that consumers beat rising food prices by opting for cheaper, 'no-frills' house brands and frozen meats, commenting that there was 'no need to buy branded bread' since 'bread is bread, rice is rice'.

In the wake of last week's surge in rice prices, Singaporeans have been stocking up on the staple, wiping out entire shelves at supermarkets.

Officials have given the assurance that domestic inventories are more than sufficient. Twice this week, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran said the national rice stockpile is enough to see the population through three months.

Food price inflation, however, is something Singaporeans will have to live with. 'It's a global phenomenon and as a small importing country, we have to accept the higher prices,' he said on Thursday. 'And we're not going to control the price because that would harm our importers and affect our supply of rice.'

Meanwhile, hawkers and restaurant owners have switched to cheaper sources to cope, using lower-grade meats and substituting Thai grain with rice from Myanmar.

But Alexandra Hospital's chief dietitian Gladys Wong thinks all this scaling back is just a temporary 'knee-jerk reaction'.

'I don't think we're going to see marked changes in the way Singaporeans eat at the end of the day. We are a food paradise after all and people are still going to pay for good food. Trust me, the obesity rate won't be coming down anytime soon.'

Biting deep into the pockets of foreign workers
Many say price hikes have added between $20 and $50 to their monthly food bills
Braema Mathi, Straits Times 5 Apr 08;

GROCERY shopping here has become an excruciating ordeal of comparing, haggling and imploring for Mr M. Samy, 39, a work permit holder from Chennai, India.

Since December, his twice-weekly marketing sessions at Serangoon Road's Tekka Market have taken twice as long. The air-conditioner technician first spends half an hour scouting for the best prices among the various stalls, does his mental sums, then homes in on the cheapest fish stall to bargain for the best deal.

There, he spends a good 10 minutes asking for the prices of different-size prawns, then repeats the process for crabs and fish. He then asks sheepishly for a 50-cent discount.

Finally, he walks away with his catch - 1kg of prawns for $7.50 and 1kg of ikan tongkol for $10. He casts a final longing look at the crab, his favourite, but walks away. The price - $12 to the kilogram - is too high.

Three months ago, he would have paid $5 for the prawns, $7 for the fish and $8 for the crab. In spite of his savvy shopping and self-denial, he and his flatmate now fork out $150 each for groceries every month, up from $100 last year.

Rising food prices are not easy to stomach given that his salary over the last six years of working here has barely inched up - from $1,100 in 2002 to $1,200 today. Meanwhile, the rental on his two-room flat has risen from $1,200 to $1,600. He and his flatmate pay $240 each, up by $70 over the years. Their company picks up the rest of the bill.

He counts himself one of the 'more fortunate' among the almost 700,000 foreign work permit holders here who mostly work as cleaners, construction workers or technicians. He draws a monthly salary, while the majority are daily-rated workers, typically earning $14 to $20 a day.

A check with 15 work permit holders - seven Indians, four Bangladeshis, three Myanmar nationals and a Thai worker - in Little India this week showed that price hikes have added between $20 and $50 to their monthly grocery bills.

Many say they have cut down on phone calls home, liquor, cigarettes - even chocolate - to make ends meet. Others toil over the weekend or work overtime to make up the difference as living costs here rise, while their pay and family commitments back home remain the same.

For many like construction worker S.Suresh, 27, it is now harder to save enough to support his farmer parents and four school-going siblings back home in Chennai.

He no longer watches Tamil and Hindi movies at the Jade cinema in Beach Road. Neither does he buy 'expensive vegetables' such as carrots and French beans, which have gone up by a dollar each to $6 and $3.50 per kilogram respectively.

He needs to make up for the extra $50 that he now spends monthly on food. This way, he is still able to send home $200 out of his $600 monthly pay packet every month.

Others who are less disciplined, or who arrived here more recently like construction worker Chinniah Rasoo, 40, have steadily fallen back on remittances.

The Tamil Nadu native arrived here four months ago and is still paying off a $5,000 debt in $200 monthly instalments, to the agent who found him a job here.

Squeezed by rising transport and other costs, he manages to send only $200 to his wife and three children, instead of the targeted $300.

'When I do my sums, it is really sad. We work hard but everything is going up. Soon, we might eat just chicken as it is cheaper than fish for a big group. What to do? We are caught in this situation,' he says in Tamil.

Compassionate stallholders at Tekka Market like fishmongers Lee Keng Seng, 45, and P.Jaraposs, 45, say they try to charge the foreign workers less and absorb the increases themselves.

Mr Nur Nabi, who sells frozen chicken, even lends money to foreign workers whom he 'feels sorry for'. Most of them, the 40-year-old notes, make good on their promise and return to repay him the 50 cents or $1 that they owe.

'What to do? My prices have gone up. I already have fewer customers among the foreign workers. Now, it sometimes takes three days to sell what we used to sell in two days,' he says.

Civil society groups like the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (Home) are concerned over how foreign workers are coping.

Noting that some get catered food through their employers at the worksites or in their dormitories, Home executive director Jolovan Wham says: 'They deduct between $100 and $150 monthly from their salaries. With the rise in food prices, I hope they will not increase these deductions or cut back on the food.'

Another group, the Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, has been distributing food to newly arrived foreign workers at three to four construction sites thrice a week.

Since last month, advocacy groups Transient Workers Count Too and One Singapore have been providing free breakfast to foreign work permit holders, especially those whose claims of non-payment, workplace injuries or exploitative agents are under investigation by the authorities.

Their volunteers have been helping to serve up uthappam (a thick pancake of fermented rice and lentils) and hot drinks to about 60 foreign workers every morning at a Cuff Road restaurant. They are currently raising more money to provide more meals for the workers.

Mr Michael Sitow, co-founder of One Singapore, which seeks to eliminate poverty, says: 'Many of the foreign workers came in good faith. They have large debts and they need food. If they do not have enough to eat for various reasons, we must do something for them.'

A FAMILY IN CHINA: Eating out is now a luxury they can't afford
Pizza meal wipes out half of family's weekly grocery budget
Vince Chong, Straits Times 5 Apr 08;

ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Ma Xingyu has been to Pizza Hut only once in her life, and she is unlikely to return any time soon.

With grocery bills adding up to half her family's income these days, they have stopped eating out altogether.

Her mother, Ms Xu Fenghe, 34, a government emp, says: 'As it is, we cannot even afford to save and we are worried that we might one day not be able to make ends meet.'

An average pizza meal for three costs more than 200 Chinese yuan (S$39) - more than half of the Ma family's current weekly grocery spending.

Xingyu's father, Mr Ma Jiang, 37, a property management executive, recently spent 350 yuan during a weekly supermarket trip, on which The Straits Times accompanied the family.

This is about 100 yuan more than he would have spent on a week's groceries last year, and 200 yuan more than in 2005 before inflation of food prices became a real problem in China.

He says a 5-litre bottle of oil now costs about 120 yuan - up from about 50 yuan in May last year.

It has pained him to tell his daughter they can no longer afford her favourite potato chips and beef jerky. The latter now costs more than 20yuan a packet, up from just 5 yuan in 2005 and 10 yuan last year, he says.

Both husband and wife each earn about 1,500 yuan a month, and have considered taking on second jobs but lack the 'time and energy'.

'We are already so tired from working Mondays to Fridays, and we have to spend the weekends with our daughter and take her to tuition classes,' says Ms Xu.

In December, the government added 200 yuan to MsXu's monthly pay in an attempt to offset rising costs. But she says it is too little to make a difference.

A sharp jump in food costs, which soared 23.3 per cent year-on-year in February, has hit ordinary Chinese like the Mas hard in a society where families typically spend up to half their income on food.

This has prompted concern that it could blight attempts to showcase China as stable and prosperous during the upcoming Olympic Games.

Last month, the government announced that it will pay farmers as much as 9 per cent more to raise production and output of rice and wheat. This is its latest move to increase supply and rein in prices, together with freezing retail prices of rice, cooking oil and other basic goods.

Food costs started spiking sharply last year after China ran short of grain and pork, the country's staple meat.

This was caused partly by increased rural-urban migration as more farmers left the plough for the city in search of better lives.

Further exacerbating the shortage were devastating snowstorms in the south that wrecked crops and animal husbandry earlier this year.

Beijing hopes to hold this year's overall inflation at 4.8 per cent - equal to last year's rate - but economists say a more realistic figure is 6.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, whatever the Mas save on eating out goes to Xingyu's tuition classes and books, which cost over 300 yuan every month.

'We want the best for our only child so we cut back on our own needs like clothes,' says Ms Xu.

'We have to remain optimistic that things will get better. What else can we do?'

A FAMILY IN INDONESIA: Even staple food items have become luxury buys
With sharp price rises in basic foodstuffs, the Suradis subsist on rice, tofu and tempe
Salim Osman, Indonesia Correspondent In Jakarta
Straits Times 5 Apr 08;

SALTED fish, eggs and vegetables have become 'luxury items' for construction worker Suradi's family.

His meagre wage of 30,000 rupiah (S$4.50) a day is now barely enough to feed his family of six living in Manggarai, South Jakarta.

The 45-year-old usually gives his wife Muji, 41, half of his daily earnings to go to the market and saves the rest for a 'rainy day'.

For 15,000 rupiah, she used to take home a basket piled high with tofu, tempe (fermented soya bean cake), vegetables, eggs, chillis and salted fish every day.

The family spent another 3,000 rupiah on 2kg of rice, and 3,000 rupiah more for kerosene and cooking oil every week.

But since the middle of last year, the family has mostly subsisted on rice, fried tofu and tempe - the basic staple of most Indonesians. Eggs and vegetables show up on the dinner table only on special occasions.

'Prices of basic foodstuff have gone up so much that we have to cut down on what we can buy daily,' says Mr Suradi grimly.

For example, a 2kg bag of rice has more than doubled in price from 3,000 rupiah to 8,000 rupiah, eggs from 9,000 rupiah a kg to 13,000 rupiah, tofu and tempe from 5,000 rupiah a packet to 14,000 rupiah, and salted fish from 5,000 rupiah a packet to 10,000 rupiah.

These days, he spends 8,000 rupiah on rice and another 11,500 rupiah on cooking oil every week. 'We can't give up tofu and tempe because these items are important for our health,' he says of the protein-rich food.

'We also have to ration how much we eat as it is barely enough for all six of us,' adds Madam Muji as she cuddles two-year-old son Wisnu, who gets to drink milk only occasionally.

Her older son Sigit, 23, does odd jobs, earning about 20,000 rupiah a day. Daughter Dewi, 18, is in high school while another daughter, Ratna, 14, is in Primary 6.

But Mr Suradi, an average working-class Indonesian, maintains that he is lucky because he owns his own home - the size of an HDB bedroom - for his family of six.

'At least I don't have to pay rent,' he says.

To supplement the family's income, he now offers joyrides after work to children in the kampung on an ondong-ondong - a bicycle with multiple seats. 'With the extra money, we can buy eggs and vegetables once a week,' he says.

Even so, gone are the days when he and his family could eat out, treating themselves to a bowl of mee bakso or noodle soup, which costs around 3,000 rupiah. 'We just can't afford it any more,' he says.

The Suradis are among millions of Indonesians feeling the pinch of rising prices of basic foodstuffs. Last month, some of his neighbours joined demonstrations in downtown Jakarta to demand that the government bring down prices.

According to official statistics, in the past year alone, cooking oil prices have surged nearly 40 per cent, rice at least 25 per cent and tofu about 50 per cent.

In January, the government was forced to cut import taxes for soya beans - the basic ingredient for tofu and tempe - after thousands of people took to the streets in protest. It now has plans to provide food subsidies for the poor.

The World Bank estimates that half of Indonesia's population of 220 million live in poverty, on around US$2 (S$2.75) a day. Rising prices have raised fears that even more will slip into poverty.

An Indonesian newspaper reported that a schoolboy in East Java, who lived with his elderly grandmother in Magetan district, hanged himself in February because he could not bear the pain of starvation.

News portal Detikcom said that in Sulawesti last month, a pregnant woman who lived in a rented room with her three children died after three days without food.

'People have died of hunger, babies are suffering from severe malnutrition because they can't get proper treatment,' says Mr Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, a spokesman for Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir during a demonstration last month.

'How is it possible that in an agricultural nation that has been independent for more than 60 years, many people have died of hunger?' he asks.

There has also been concern that the high price of basic foodstuffs could trigger social unrest similar to that in 1998 when former president Suharto was toppled.

A FAMILY IN INDIA: Junking junk food helps them cut their bills
Fewer packaged foods help this family cope with rising food prices
P. Jayaram, Straits Times 5 Apr 08;

WITH prices of almost every food item hitting the roof, Mr Atul Jain, a 44-year-old importer of food processing machines, and his wife Vandana made some hard decisions.

Out went Domino's pizzas and Coke, Pepsi and Sprite, without which the world looked bleak initially for their school-going son Dheemnt, 15, and daughter Sumedha, 10.

'We had to cut down and we decided to junk the junk food,' says Mrs Jain, a 40-year-old housewife. 'I started making pizza at home and now the children love it because I give them plenty of their favourite toppings.

'We also stopped buying soft drinks. I now make nimbu pani (fresh lime juice) and no one misses Coke and Sprite.'

Ice cream, potato chips, packaged cereals, pre-

cooked paneer chilli (spicy cottage cheese) and fruit juice are also out of the family's grocery basket.

The only item the Jains, who are vegetarians, have not scrimped on is milk. 'We all take milk and we didn't want to cut down on it. You can't neglect your health,' says Mrs Jain.

Prices of almost every kitchen essential - from vegetables to cooking oil, wheat and rice - have gone up steeply in the past year. According to Mrs Jain, her weekly grocery and vegetable bill has jumped from about 700 to 800 rupees (S$24 to S$28) last year to more than 1,000 today, despite her austerity measures.

'How much more can you reduce?' she asks. She adds that she has even stopped buying plastic cling wrap. 'Now I use cloth, which can be re-used.'

Like many middle-class Indian families, the Jains are inconvenienced and concerned by rising food prices.

But harder hit are the poor, as food accounts for up to two-thirds of their income. This hunger could soon turn to anger if the trend of price rises continues.

This is bad news in a country where nearly one-third of its 1.1 billion population live on less than 80 rupees a day. According to independent estimates, there has been a 30 to 50 per cent increase in the prices of basic foods since last year.

The government realises this could seriously affect the fortunes of the Congress Party and its partners in the ruling coalition in state legislature elections due this year and national elections next year.

It also realises that even the goodwill generated by the massive 600 billion rupee farm loan waiver announced in the budget and the recommended 40 per cent increase in wages of government employees would be offset by this rising anger.

With inflation hitting a 13-month high of 6.68 per cent in mid-March, the government on Monday announced a slew of measures, including a ban on non-basmati rice exports and cuts in import duty on edible oils and maize to check inflation.

But this failed to satisfy even its allies.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M), which extends vital parliamentary support to the minority government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, criticised the measures by the government to control spiralling prices as half-hearted.

The CPI (M) is now discussing with other parties about launching a joint nationwide agitation on the issue of price rises.

It has also demanded a ban on future trading in all essential commodities, scrapping legislation allowing foreign direct investment in the commodities market, strengthening the public distribution system, lowering taxes on petroleum products and a drive against food hoarders.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also criticised the measures announced by the government as short-

sighted.

BJP vice-president M. Venkaiah Naidu said the party will organise protests across the country next week to pressure the Congress Party on the issue of price hikes.

The measures to check inflation announced by the government after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Prices last Sunday amounted to nothing, he charged, adding that there is no shortage of food grain and essential commodities in the country but the government has failed to 'manage prices and curb blackmarketeers'.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has assured Indians that the 'government is determined to take all measures, fiscal, monetary and supply side, to moderate inflation and if that means we have to live with slightly lesser growth, so be it'.

He said rising inflation is not due to policy mistakes, but worldwide demand for commodities.

But agriculture experts say, while there are many reasons for soaring food prices, the main factor is that India no longer grows enough food to feed its huge population - due to stagnating agricultural production on the one hand, and growing demand on the other.