NTUC Enterprise Unveils Strategic Plans To Meet Evolving Needs

• NTUC Social Enterprises – NTUC FairPrice, NTUC Foodfare and Kopitiam – will come together as a group to optimise resources and leverage their respective strengths to better deliver quality, affordability, convenience and enhanced experiences

Singapore, 22 October 2019 – NTUC Enterprise today announced the formation of FairPrice Group, comprising NTUC FairPrice (FairPrice), NTUC Foodfare (Foodfare) and Kopitiam, to cater to consumers’ evolving food-related needs. FairPrice Group will optimise resources of all three social enterprises and leverage their respective strengths to better deliver quality, affordability, convenience and enhanced experiences for all Singaporeans.

Anchored by its core mission to drive socially good outcomes, NTUC Enterprise is better poised to provide an integrated array of products and services, from groceries, ready-to-cook, and ready-to-eat offerings, to on-premise meals and food take-aways through FairPrice Group.

Mr Seah Kian Peng, Group CEO of NTUC Enterprise said, “The formation of FairPrice Group is guided by our objective to offer differentiated services and products to complement evolving consumers’ lifestyles. It seeks to put customers first, provide better value for all and make everything about food easy. The integration of the three social enterprises will provide consumers with a comprehensive range of everyday essentials including groceries and cooked food. Harnessing new technologies, the Group also seeks to provide greater convenience and enhance the customer experience. This is a culmination of our ongoing efforts to innovate and transform so that we remain relevant in serving the varied needs of our community.”

Leveraging Respective Strengths of Each Social Enterprise

Affordability

The cost of groceries and cooked food are key concerns of consumers. The latest household expenditure survey[1] by SingStat revealed that food accounts for a significant share of more than one quarter of the average monthly household expenditure, amounting to $1,199. This expenditure on food is 25 percent more compared to 10 years ago.  Over the decade, food and food services remain the top expense for households.

FairPrice has various programmes in place to help keep prices of daily essentials affordable, for example, Everyday Low Price items, patronage rebates as well as discounts for seniors and union members. In 2018, seniors saved $6.9 million through the PG members and Seniors Discount Scheme. Over the same period, FairPrice members saved over $80.2 million in patronage rebates and dividends, and over $30.3 million worth of LinkPoints were distributed.

In addition, housebrand items are generally priced 10% to 20% lower than national brands. Earlier in March this year, FairPrice also initiated a price freeze on a basket of 100 FairPrice housebrand products until 30 June 2020 to protect shoppers from any price fluctuations, regardless of changes in supply and external factors.

Foodfare provides affordable and nutritious meals from as low as $1.50 for concession cardholders, in addition to its wide array of value and budget meals for various customer profiles. This year, $0.50 hot coffee (“kopi”) and tea (“teh”) was introduced to benefit Merdeka and Pioneer Generations, and union members. This initiative was also extended to Kopitiam, bringing the total number of Foodfare and Kopitiam outlets offering $0.50 hot kopi/teh close to 100 outlets. In addition, the combined footprint of Foodfare and Kopitiam was leveraged to offer more consumers the breakfast set that costs $1.80 for NTUC Union members and $2.20 for members of the public.

FairPrice Group will build upon the foundations of these programmes and leverage the wide retail networks of each social enterprise for economies of scale, with the objective of delivering quality and price benchmarks to magnify its social purpose.

Convenience

FairPrice Group will offer greater convenience with the combined footprint of over 570[2] touchpoints across Singapore, including supermarkets, hawker centres, food courts, coffeeshops, pharmacies and convenience stores.

FairPrice serves over 16.7 million shoppers monthly on average across 375 stores in multiple retail formats, while Foodfare and Kopitiam serve 17.3 million meals each month across 198 outlets island-wide. Leveraging upon its extensive network, FairPrice Group will continue to drive efforts to enhance its suite of services and provide more convenience and accessibility to consumers.

Quality

FairPrice Group advocates quality, healthy eating and food safety. Recently FairPrice unveiled its plan to refresh its housebrand range of products, reaffirming its commitment towards delivering quality products and adhering to stringent food safety standards.

To promote the importance of healthy living, the Healthier Choice Symbol (HCS) will continue to be expanded along with the organic and fresh product range at FairPrice. FairPrice currently offers more than 1,700 HCS certified products, which include more than 200 housebrand products. Consumers also have the option of healthier meals at Foodfare and Kopitiam. At least one healthier meal (under the Health Promotion Board’s Healthier Dining Programme) is available at every stall in Foodfare and selected stalls in Kopitiam.

To support the nation’s fight against diabetes, Foodfare introduced a range of innovative, Low-GI ready meals under Chef’s Finest Low-GI label to provide diabetic-friendly meal choices.

In terms of food safety, FairPrice supermarkets, Fresh Food Distribution Centre, and Foodfare’s central kitchen are ISO 22000 and HACCP-certified, which are highly rigorous and comprehensive international food safety standards that look at temperature control, level of freshness, packaging and food traceability. Kopitiam’s outlets at the airport and hospitals are also HACCP-certified.

Enhanced Experiences

As part of its continuous efforts to engage and delight consumers, FairPrice Group will adopt technology and innovative concepts to enhance shopping and dining experiences. It will utilise customer analytics and monitor market trends to customise products and services tailored to their needs.

The latest FairPrice Xtra hypermarket at VivoCity embodies this philosophy by offering a blended suite of services including grocery shopping, food preparation, and dine-in services in a one-stop integrated retail space.

With increased popularity of online shopping, FairPrice has recently piloted an omni-channel initiative, Scan-and-Go, that enables customers to shop with ease where they can scan and pay for their products at the store by accessing their FairPrice Online account through their smart phones, and skip the check-out queue. Scan-and-Go is currently available at FairPrice Xtra@Vivo City and FairPrice Finest@Funan.

KopiTech at Funan features a new concept and standard for food court dining in Singapore where patrons can place their order and pay at the self-service kiosks or via the Facebook Messenger app. It also accepts cryptocurrencies as payment. In addition, KopiChope, Singapore’s first food court private dining reservation service was recently launched at Paya Lebar Quarter.

“As modern lifestyles become more complex and demanding, FairPrice Group’s integrated products and services – from groceries to prepared food – will enable us to serve consumers through different life stages. Through our omni-channel retail and dining network, we are well poised to deliver greater value to consumers, providing them ease and convenience,” said Mr Seah.

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[1] Household Expenditure Survey 2017/2018 by SingStat: https://www.singstat.gov.sg/-/media/files/publications/households/hes201718.pdf

[2] FairPrice: 375 total stores; Foodfare: 14 food courts, 11 coffee shops, 9 hawker centres, 54 Rice Garden and 33 Wang Café; Kopitiam: 50 food courts, 24 coffeeshops, 3 hawker centres