Food security a matter of breaking habits

Quality counts, not whether your chicken is from Malaysia or Brazil
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 19 Nov 09;

WITH Apec dominating the news, what occurred on Wednesday last week would have barely registered on most Singaporeans' radar.

To recap: You could not have bought fresh pork here last Wednesday if you had tried.

That strange state of affairs was caused by a hairline crack in a metal tube supplying ammonia to cool the air in the meat chillers in Singapore's sole abattoir.

Operations were halted, and meat from 900 pigs was incinerated in case of contamination. The ruptured pipe was replaced and slaughter resumed the next day. Because fresh pork needs to be sufficiently chilled before sale, no pork was market-ready last Wednesday.

Big deal? Not to many here. My guess is that most Singaporeans either did not notice, or switched their dinner menu. In the grander scheme of things, however, it was a very big deal.

A leaky pipe caused last week's problem. But if one stopped to think about it, there are any number of events that could disrupt Singapore's food supplies.

The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature said just that in a report released last week. It said that because of Singapore's dependency on imports - more than 90 per cent of all food consumed here is brought in from abroad - 'any significant damage to crops in neighbouring countries will affect agriculture and food supplies'.

In fact, such events have already occurred. Last month, vegetable wholesaler Gary Ong, 43, imported 20,000kg less cabbage and bak choy from Indonesia after heavy rains there destroyed crops.

Again, however, customers did not notice.

Mr Ong, whose Vat Thoa Vegetables Wholesaler supplies greens to hawkers and supermarkets, simply switched to Chinese sources instead.

This happy state of affairs is the result of Singapore's successful efforts to diversify its food sources. The effort began in 1985, but it picked up steam last year when hikes in fuel and commodity prices led to sharp increases in food prices.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is Singapore's point agency in scouring the ends of the earth for new food sources.

As a result, we now have fish from Namibia, rice from Vietnam and eggs from the United States to complement the usual sources - Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, respectively. Diversification, said an AVA spokesman, is a key strategy in ensuring 'food resilience'.

The AVA's efforts have paid dividends. As of March this year, 745 companies from all over the world were accredited to export meat, processed meat and eggs to Singapore. This is up from 218 in 2004.

In 1992, food exports from 14 countries were allowed in Singapore. That number is now 31.

When it comes to processed food, some 2,475 types across 38,662 brands from 155 countries are imported - about twice the number of brands in 2004.

So with so many sources, what is the problem? Well, you, the consumer, actually.

We Singaporeans love our food. Perhaps because of this, we are extremely picky about it, too.

Despite food from many countries being approved for sale here, the reality is that little is brought in.

Rice importer Jimmy Soh, for instance, stopped importing the US grain two years ago because of poor sales.

'Restaurants stopped ordering it from us after a few months, so we stopped bringing it in,' he said. Consumers, he explained, preferred the longer-grain Thai variety.

The restaurant Peach Garden has a similar story to tell. It began importing goose meat from France and Taiwan in 2004, when supplies from China were cut in January that year after bird flu hit the country. The move bombed spectacularly.

Said Peach Garden spokesman Veronica Tan: 'The response was really bad. Customers complained that the meat was tough, old and dry. So we stopped selling it altogether.'

For Ong Joo Joo Food Industries, too, the diversification experiment has not gone well. It battled for two whole years to sell customers on frozen pork, and many are still not convinced.

Therein lies the rub, said the meat importer's managing director, Mr Ting Puong Huat.

'If the consumers don't accept new products, importers might not bring them in,' he said.

At best, this means a smaller basket of goods on the market. At worst, it means importers will not be able to switch sources quickly enough when the need arises, leading to shortages, and, eventually, higher prices.

Of course, food is a matter of taste. Until we are faced with a genuine shortage, we will be loath to change what works for us. But, really, is there such a big difference? Or are we just slaves to habit?

Chef Yadi Musmulyadi of the Changi Village Hotel believes it does not make 'much difference where the food is from if it's all high quality. It is all about habit'.

'If we tell customers the chicken is from Malaysia, some turn their noses up at it. If we say it's from Brazil, they think it tastes better,' he said, adding that if cooked well, the difference is hardly noticeable.

Go to a supermarket, however, and the tables are turned. Customers will instinctively ignore frozen Brazilian chicken and pick the chilled fowl from Malaysia, believing it to be fresher. If that is not habit, I do not know what is.

Last year, when prices went through the roof, Singaporeans had no trouble switching from olive oil to housebrand cooking oil.

Choice, obviously, is a good thing. But what if global warming, a freak weather pattern, some new virus or a hairline crack in a pipe results in disruption?