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Straits Times

Forum: Budget meals must be full-sized portions

We thank Mr Li Wei Jun for his feedback ('Ensure that budget meal is still a proper meal', April 23). The Ministry of National Development (MND) and the Housing & Development Board (HDB) introduced the budget meal initiative in March 2023, to ensure that residents have access to affordable food options in HDB estates. Under the initiative, all rental HDB coffee shops that have renewed their tenancies starting from May 2023, as well as privately owned HDB coffee shops purchased from the open market, are required to offer at least four budget meals and two budget drink options. Despite our efforts to reach Mr Li, we were unable to ascertain whether the budget meal mentioned is part of the budget meal initiative or was voluntarily offered by the coffee shop. Nonetheless, we agree with Mr Li that budget meals should be adequately portioned. Under our guidelines, the budget meals provided by participating coffee shops must be full-sized meals for adults, and not be kid's meals or half-portions. To this end, we work closely with coffee shop operators and stallholders, and conduct regular checks to ensure compliance with our budget meal requirements. While we aim to ensure affordable cooked options for Singaporeans, we are also mindful not to overburden stallholders. Hence, we are reviewing the Price-Quality Method framework to increase the weightage for quality and consider the charges that prospective coffee shop operators impose on stallholders. We welcome public feedback on budget meals and will follow up with the operators as appropriate. Members of the public may submit their feedback via HDB's website or the BudgetMealGoWhere portal. Chia I-Ling Director (Policy & Planning) Housing & Development Board More on this Topic Forum: What readers are saying Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.