Follow the Plate

How the model works

The page runs the model in your browser, as a JavaScript copy of the Python model. A test checks that both give the same answers. The 5,000-draw results and the succession figures come from the Python run.

• How the model works: F.2 Limits, Assumptions and How This Enters the Plan
• Download the model (plate_model.py) · its results (results.json)
• Open the original simulator

Assumptions

Plate price, plates a day

Calibrated so the tendered NEA stall reproduces NEA's 2022 cost shares; coffeeshop and food-court prices sit above hawker centres, as in IPS's 2023 price survey.

NEA rent

The typical tendered stall pays about $1,250 a month, the median non-subsidised cooked-food rent across NEA's centres, stable for about a decade (MSE, 18 Sep 2023 and 5 Feb 2025; NEA, 4 Nov 2024), and the median assessed market rent given to Parliament. $1,450 is the 2025 median at the NEA centres comparable with the operator-run ones (MSE, 8 Sep 2026): the model uses it only where the text sets NEA centres beside operator-run ones, and as a quoted rent in the rent test (D.4.1).

Centre feesAssumption

NEA and operator-run centres: 2025 median conservancy and table-cleaning fees at comparable centres (MSE, 8 Sep 2026). At NEA centres 30% of the fees is treated as landlord income and the rest as services: an assumption, probably high, since MSE says the fees fund 'a significant part' of a centre's running costs (5 Feb 2024); tested at 0-30% with no change to the findings. At operator-run centres the table-cleaning fee is a pass-through of the contractor's price, which operators may not profit from (NEA, 21 Jul 2026), so only the conservancy charge carries the 30%. Coffeeshop O&M fees of $1,000-1,200: commercial sources only; 60% treated as landlord income, the rest as services. Assumption.

Food-court turnover rentAssumption

25% of sales; the only data point is about 20% (2014). The weakest parameter. Assumption.

Manpower

$2,920 a month: one assistant at the $2,220 PWM benchmark plus 17% employer CPF ($2,597), and about $320 of part-time help. Matches NEA's 20% manpower share. The PWM does not bind hawker stalls, so actual pay may be lower.

DeliveryAssumption

Commission of 30% of a delivered order: GrabFood's published service fee, before GST (Grab, Oct 2026); foodpanda does not publish its rate. Varied 25-35% in the Monte Carlo. Deliveroo went offline in Singapore after 4 March 2026. Grab said in 2020 that it kept about 5% of an order as its own fee, the rest paying riders (Vulcan Post, 17 Apr 2020). Delivery is 8% of sales: an assumption, since no share is published for hawker stalls.

Pass-through

MTI 2015: a 1% rise in raw-material cost goes with a 0.56% price rise, and 1% rent with 0.03%. To turn these into dollars: ingredients are 44.5% of the plate's price, so 0.56 / 0.445 = 1.25, and each extra dollar of ingredient cost raises the plate by $1.25. Rent is 8% at an NEA stall, so 0.03 / 0.08 = 0.38, about 38 cents for each extra dollar of rent; the model rounds this down to 0.35 and applies it to every kind of landlord. MTI sampled NEA centres only (2012-14), so the coffeeshop and food-court rates are our extension of it.

Landlord captureAssumption

Share of any help paid to a stall that its landlord takes back at the next renewal: 0% subsidised, 5% tendered, 15% operator-run, 35% HDB-rented coffeeshop, 85% private coffeeshop, 95% food court. assumption by type of landlord.

Unwanted closuresAssumption

10 days a year lost to illness or exhaustion; varied 4-16. Assumption.

Demand elasticityAssumption

One early Singapore estimate (Poh, 2026: a survey of 90 diners, asking what they say they would do, not a random sample) finds diners more sensitive, 1.0-3.9 by age; not yet used. Restaurant studies abroad find -1.2 and below; hawker meals assumed less sensitive at -0.5, varied -0.3 to -1.0. Assumption.

Workfare

Work Year 2025: the self-employed maximum is $3,267 at age 60 and over, for incomes of $500-3,000 a month, and MediSave must be paid; 10% is paid in cash and 90% into MediSave. CPF does not publish how Workfare builds up and tails off with income, so the model assumes straight lines. One hawker in twenty is assumed to be behind on MediSave, with or without the Protection Floor. A hawker cannot renew the SFA stall licence while behind on MediSave unless he is on a GIRO plan, an automatic monthly bank deduction (SFA; CPF, 4 Nov 2025), so the one in four of all self-employed persons who are behind (MOM, Feb 2025) does not describe hawkers. The Protection Floor therefore adds no Workfare in the model.

Supply-chain splitAssumption

Assumption, not data. No published margins for importers, wholesalers, distributors or central kitchens (SingStat publishes no margins by food sub-industry). The model puts 65% of the ingredient bill at the border (farm or import value and freight) and 35% with the Singapore-side intermediaries, the central case of a 25-45% range. Only its change can be tested: from 2019 to 2025 retail food prices rose 18.5% and food import prices 20.9% (SingStat; our arithmetic), so the middle's share did not widen (D.5.3). A Plate Ledger indicator (D.8).

Landlord splitAssumption

Head landlord vs operator shares of coffeeshop rents: assumption; HDB said in January 2026 that it would begin collecting stall-rent data. Operator-run centres: the operator keeps about 10% of rent and landlord fees, derived from MSE's average operating surplus of about $100,000 a centre a year (2019-23, 15 Oct 2024) at an assumed 48 stalls; at least half of the surplus must be reinvested in the centre or its stallholders, so 10% is an upper bound.

Coffeeshop rentsAssumption

HDB-rented $3,400 and private $6,000 a month: assumptions. No official stall-rent data exist; a commercial guide puts HDB coffeeshop stall rents at $4,000-10,000 (Home & Decor, 1 Apr 2026), so the base is conservative. HDB rents 374 coffeeshops and 402 are privately owned (Enterprise Singapore, MND and HDB, 1 Jul 2024): at about 7.5 cooked-food stalls each, about 2,800 and 3,000 stalls.

Relief cooks

A Corps cook is an employee, so the Employment Act limits his working day to 12 hours. In a week of more than five days, as a stall's is, hours beyond the normal 8 a day are overtime, paid at 1.5 times the hourly rate (MOM). He is paid the Progressive Wage rate for a Cook (QS), $12.95 an hour from July 2026: 8 hours at that rate and 4 at 1.5 times, equal to 14 hours' pay, plus the employer's 17% CPF, about $212 a day in 2026, rising with the PWM path ($13.69 from July 2027, $14.42 from July 2028). Where the stall's day is longer than 12 hours (13 in the typical case), the stall's own assistant does the first hour's prep, as on any day. The hawker co-pays $80 a day.

Cost shocks (D.6)Assumption

Wages: every wage the stall pays follows the PWM path, +12.6% from July 2026 to July 2028, employer CPF included; 30% passed on (assumption). Energy: electricity rose from 27.27 to 31.91 cents a kWh in Q3 2026 (SP Group) and town gas from 21.92 to 23.48 cents (City Energy, as reported) after the Middle East conflict; in Q4 they fell to 28.59 and 21.45 cents; SP Group has not said where they go next, and one analyst expects a single-digit rise in Q1 2027 (Rystad Energy, as reported, 30 Sep 2026). Utilities are 60% electricity and 40% gas (assumption). A rise hits every stall at once, so we assume stalls pass half of it on to diners: MTI 2015's gas-price effect (0.0486) divided by a utilities share of about 9.3%. A fall is assumed not to lower prices (assumption).

Closed-stall cost

A day shut for illness loses a day's sales; rent, centre fees, the assistant, utilities and other running costs continue, as for every unwanted closure in the model. The assistant is kept on and the regulars are assumed to come back; if regulars drift away the true loss is larger, and the model does not count it. NEA may waive the rent of a stall closed for medical reasons (MSE, 10 Mar 2025); a Corps cook on medical leave costs the hawker $40 a day (§2.7). Derived.

Newcomer's rent path

NEA's renewal rule from November 2024, for new tenancies: the winning bid for three years, halfway to the assessed market rent at the first renewal for the next three, the assessed market rent from the seventh year (The Online Citizen, 15 Sep 2026; NEA, Nov 2024). NEA does not publish a stall's valuation, so the $1,450 and $1,250 set against the $1,800 bid are illustrative.

Hawker income check

MOM's labour force survey put the median gross monthly income of full-time resident hawkers and stall holders who employ no one at about $1,470 in 2021 (in the Advisory Committee on Platform Workers' report, 2022, Fig. 1.1), read from a bar chart, so derived. For the self-employed it is profit before tax, as the model's net is. We converted it to 2026 money using SingStat's hawker-food price index (102.8 in 2021 and 122.8 in January-September 2026, where 2019 = 100) and compared it with the model's simulated stalls of every type, counting each type by its number of stalls (D.4).

Retirement match under 55

The Protection Floor's $1,200 match applies only to stallholders under 55; from 55 the existing Matched Retirement Savings Scheme already matches cash top-ups up to $2,000 a year for those who pass its income and home tests, and the plan helps hawkers claim it. The share of stallholders under 55 is not published; the median hawker is 60 (MSE, Nov 2024), so fewer than half are under 55. The model counts half, an upper bound, so the match's cost is a ceiling. Hospital-cash cover is not scaled.