TL;DR – The initiative is to help Singaporeans stretch their dollar and alleviate living costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Please lah, NTUC FairPrice where got cheap? Many items can be found selling cheaper at other supermarket lor!” – This is true, but this is also not true.
True that there are things you can get cheaper elsewhere as compared to FairPrice, but not true because there are items at FairPrice sold at the lowest prices in the market.
Just so you know, it was never the intent of FairPrice to be the cheapest in the market.
Instead, FairPrice’s mission has always been to fight inflation, to offer daily essentials at affordable prices, to hold down prices, and to deter profiteering and the black market.
If there is no FairPrice or if FairPrice isn’t the leading grocery retailer with the biggest market share today, can you thump your chest and guarantee that the other for-profit competitors out there will still be willing to offer you their competitive prices? Can you still use FairPrice as your benchmark when comparing prices? What, then, can stop those commercial outfits from maximising profits?
I can’t say for sure.
But there is one thing I am sure of though: If there’s no FairPrice, there won’t be FairPrice Foundation to provide yearly donations to the NTUC-U Care Fund to help Singaporeans from low-income families, among other initiatives which the social enterprise has been doing to give back to the community.
Sheng Siong rewards its staff with an additional month of salary, what is NTUC FairPrice doing?
While NTUC FairPrice isn’t always about reducing cost and being “cheap price”, it promises to 1) Keep daily essentials affordable for Singaporeans and 2) Provide additional cost savings to Singaporeans.
Remember, as a social enterprise, it has to first make money, before it can do good.
Keeping daily essentials affordable for Singaporeans amid Covid-19 pandemic
On Jun 22, NTUC FairPrice has announced that it will continue to freeze the prices of 100 housebrand items at its supermarkets until the end of the year as part of a S$50 million package to alleviate living costs for households amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The price freeze initiative, which was launched in March 2019 and slated to run until Jun 30 this year, is now extended until Dec 31.
According to NTUC FairPrice, the extension is to help cushion Singaporeans against potential price increases, regardless of changes in supply, socio-economic factors, and external factors that could affect food prices, especially during the current volatile and uncertain climate.
If you don’t already know, as far back as 1985, NTUC FairPrice has been helping Singaporeans to stretch their dollar through the introduction of its own range of Housebrand products.
(Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore)
Today, FairPrice continues to offer a wide array of daily essentials which are priced 10 to 15% lower than those of its market competitors.
Extension of discounts for eligible seniors
It has also been announced that the social enterprise has extended the validity of its various discount programmes to provide cost savings for eligible seniors for another six months.
In other words, on top of the usual LinkPoints and member rebates, members of the Pioneer Generation (PG), Merdeka Generation (MG), and Senior Citizens can also continue to enjoy the existing Monday to Wednesday discounts when they shop at FairPrice for another six months until Dec 31.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me repeat this: the intent of FairPrice was never to be the cheapest in the market. Rather, what NTUC FairPrice wants to do, is to moderate the cost of living in Singapore.
That is to say, as long as NTUC FairPrice is around, you can rest assured that you can always have FairPrice as your benchmark whenever you need to compare prices for the best deals.