MODERNIZATION OF THE COOKED-FOOD RETAIL SYSTEM IN SINGAPORE : TWO CASE STUDIES OF FOOD COURTS

Abstract

Singapore's cooked-food retail system has changed considerably over the last four decades. Mobile cooked-food hawkers, once a ubiquitous feature of our urban scape have all been 'institutionalized'. They were removed from their agglomerations (mainly in the Central Area) and relocated to 'hawker centres' spread over the island. This spatial transformation was the result of the government's public housing programme (through new town development), urban renewal and intensified economic development. These socio-economic changes must be understood in terms of state intervention and the expansionary thrust of capitalism. In 1986, a new 'type' of cooked-food retail outlet emerged. Food courts, which are located in shopping centres, evolved in the climate of competition among the many shopping complexes in the Central Area. This new 'mode of consumption' seeks to attract higher shop-patronage by providing hawker-centre-style eating outlets set in hygienic and air-conditioned environment. The cooked-food operators in these food courts are 'modem entrepreneurs' who are distinct from the hawker-centre stallholders. Their enterprise are high-capital ventures, and they use technically 'modem' gadgets such as microwave ovens, cash registers etc. The patrons of these food courts are 'sophisticated consumers' who have a high propensity to eat out in eating places that are air-conditioned, centrally located and which serve a variety of food. The modernization of Singapore's cooked-food retail system is attributed to the two forces of state intervention and capitalist expansion. The phenomenon of 'food courts' is but one of the products of this transformation. These changes are not localized events but are part of the global process of increasing capital-intensification in the cooked-food retail system. It is within the context of global convergence of food consumption patterns and diffusion of modern consumerism that this study of cooked food retailing in Singapore is set in perspective.