New Study Shows That These 13 Food Items in S’pore Increased Their Prices the Most

Last Updated on 2023-03-28 , 2:10 pm

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed an increase in the cost of food when dining out, especially with the Goods & Services Tax (GST) hike earlier this year.

But here’s the good news: If you’re wondering how to budget in advance and know which dishes outside are the cheapest, you don’t need to go to all the kopitiams in Singapore to figure that out.

Because a study conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has already figured that out for you.

On Monday (13 March), IPS released a report titled The Cost of Eating Out: Findings from the Makan Index 2.0.

And here’s what you need to know about the study.

More About the Study

As for what the study entailed, it was split into two halves in order to compare the prices before and after the GST hike.

The first half was conducted between September and November last year, while the second half was conducted from January to February this year.

The prices of food and beverage items from 92 hawker centres, 636 coffee shops and 101 air-conditioned food courts were included in this study, and the establishments spanned 26 different neighbourhoods in Singapore.

Regarding the items of comparison, the study covered 18 commonly bought dishes and drinks.

The items were:

1. Kopi-O
2. Kopi
3. Iced Milo
4. Canned drink with ice
5. Iced lime juice
6. Breakfast set (kaya toast, two soft-boiled eggs and coffee or tea)
7. Chicken biryani
8. Mee rebus
9. Nasi lemak
10. Fishball noodles
11. Wanton noodles
12. Economic bee hoon/noodles (stir-fried rice vermicelli/egg noodles)
13. Vegetarian bee hoon/noodle set
14. Economic rice (two vegetables and one meat option)
15. Western chicken chop
16. Chicken rice (steamed or roasted chicken with rice)
17. Prata (one plain and one egg)
18. Sliced fish soup with rice

The study also recorded the price of a single fried egg and chicken wing from economic bee hoon stalls.

The Price of Ice Milo Increased the Most

Out of the 18 items, the price of 13 of them increased considerably over the past few months.

And coming in at the top is Ice Milo, which saw a price increase of 6.98% from an average of $1.72 to $1.84 between the two halves of the study.

Ice Milo was also the most expensive drink in the study.

Other food and beverage items which underwent a considerable price increase include breakfast sets, fishball noodles, fish soup, canned drinks, chicken rice and Kopi-O.

The price increase for breakfast sets stood at 6.84%, while that of fishball noodles, fish soup and canned drinks stood at 5.16%, 5.03% and 4.67% respectively.

Out of those items, the increase in the cost of breakfast sets was the most, for the

On the other hand, dishes such as chicken biryani and mee rubus saw a smaller increase in price, while the cost of vegetarian bee hoon remained unchanged.

Well, maybe it’s time to go vegetarian then.

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Stallholders’ Opinions

In the report, it was also mentioned that some stallholders said that they have had to strike a balance between “managing the rising cost of operation and not increasing prices by too much in order to not drive customers away”.

Stallholders who increased their prices explained why they did so, while those who did not were proud that they were able to resist the pressure caused by inflation.