A netizen visited the Marine Parade Central Market and Food Centre with a group of friends and decided to treat their elderly companion to a bowl of cheng tng.
As the elderly person could not consume much, they requested an additional bowl from the stall. To their surprise, they were informed that there would be a S$2.60 surcharge for the extra bowl, according to Shin Min Daily News.
This was the first time they had encountered such a fee and found it unreasonable to pay for an empty bowl.
The dessert stall in question, Four Seasons Cendol, is the sole vendor of cheng tng at Marine Parade Central Market and Food Centre.
An employee named Ms Lin explained that the stall had stopped providing customers with extra bowls unless they were willing to pay the S$2.60 fee.
Ms Lin clarified that the surcharge was implemented for accounting purposes. The stall needed to keep track of the number of bowls used daily to match the number of desserts sold.
Previously, extra bowls were given to patrons free of charge, but many failed to return them directly to the stall, resulting in discrepancies in accounting and a shortfall in cash collected.
Four Seasons Cendol is not the only stall at the food centre that charges an “extra bowl fee.” Yew Kee Duck Rice and other stalls also levy a surcharge, although theirs is a smaller amount of S$0.10.
The reason cited by these stalls for the fee is the increased washing costs incurred due to the additional tableware.
A chicken rice stall owner mentioned that they charged S$0.10 per extra bowl but sometimes offered them for free, especially when customers ordered a large amount of food or had children.
The cost of cleaning and washing tableware is a significant expense for the stalls at Marine Parade Food Centre, amounting to over S$1,000 per month.
According to Mr Cheng Wenxing, chairman of the Marine Parade Merchants’ Association, washing a big bowl costs S$0.12, while a small bowl costs S$0.07.
Each stall has to bear the cost of additional washing fees when more bowls are given out to customers. In addition to that, there are general cleaning fees for table wiping, totalling S$480 per stall.