Speech by DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Pilot Launch of Singapore’s First Vendcafé

SPEECH BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER & COORDINATING MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE PILOT LAUNCH OF SINGAPORE’S FIRST VENDCAFÉ, SUNDAY, 7 AUGUST 2016, 10AM, BLK 320C ANCHORVALE DRIVE

Dr Lam Pin Min, Member of Parliament, Sengkang West,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am happy to join everyone here this morning for the launch of Singapore’s first VendCafé.  It is the first time we are trying out this concept in an HDB estate, and it’s also a step forward for our food services sector. SPRING Singapore, HDB, JR Vending and the Sengkang West Zone ‘B’ Residents Committee have been working closely to make this idea a reality, and I would like to commend them all for their efforts.

Vending machines provide residents with convenient, round-the-clock access to a range of food options

The VendCafé is a convenient, round-the-clock dining alternative for residents. These unmanned vending machines can operate 24/7. Hot meals will be dispensed in less than three minutes. And residents will also have a range of food choices, including local favourites like seafood hor fun and Western meals like chicken carbonara.

What’s important too is that the food should be not only tasty but safe to eat. Improvements in technology have now made it possible for food to be rapidly chilled after it is cooked, thus locking in the freshness and nutritional value. 

I am also happy to know that JR Vending’s central kitchen, where the food is prepared, packaged and then delivered to the vending machines here, has been awarded several certifications for meeting high standards of food safety and hygiene, such as the GMP, HACCP and ISO22000. They are working with the Health Promotion Board to identify and include healthier products in their vending machines by the end of the year, which means we can look forward to having healthy options here in this VendCafé in the future.

The VendCafé is an example of how the food services sector is being transformed to become less reliant on manpower while meeting consumer demands for quality, convenience and nutrition are met. It requires significantly fewer workers and less space than a conventional eatery, mainly because food preparation is done off-site, more efficiently, in central kitchens.

This is one of several initiatives we are taking to help the food services sector use technology, and to make self-service convenient for consumers, so that we can cope with a tight manpower situation in Singapore.  

Consumers play a key role

Consumers indeed play a critical role in allowing these innovations to spread.  In countries like Japan, Taiwan and the UK, where ready meals are now common in places like convenience stores, consumer attitudes shifted over the years to embrace these ready meals. In fact, 8% of meals in Japan are sold as ready meals like what we are seeing today (compared to just 0.5% in Singapore today). It took a while, but consumers are now very comfortable with ready meals in these countries.

If successful here in Sengkang and a few other pilot sites where we will try out the VendCafe concept, it will be replicated around the island. 

I understand that everyone here has been given a card to redeem a free meal at these vending machines, so let’s all give it a try!

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