Proposals · Part V · The Taste Council

The Heritage Plate mark

A certification mark that restaurants, hotels and packaged-food makers license to sell one master's documented dish, with a disclosed 50 cents a plate.

SELF-FINANCING · LICENCE INCOME
BUILDS ON · IPOS CERTIFICATION MARKS

The mark is registered with IPOS as a certification mark under the Trade Marks Act 1998 and launches once the first masters are certified, in about Year 3. It certifies one master's documented recipe and lineage, never 'authentic' laksa. Recipes stay open; the licence covers the mark, the master's name and training by Master Fellows. Diners pay a disclosed 50 cents a certified plate, priced in and shown on the menu, so they opt in by ordering. Of that, 40% goes to the master's family, 40% to the hawker retirement match and 20% to the Seed Bank. No dish carries the mark without the master's consent, the Hawker Council's documentation veto applies, and checks fall on licensees' kitchens, never on hawkers' stalls. The plan puts central licence income at about $60,000 in Year 3 (15 licensed outlets), rising to about $2.0M a year from Year 7, net of a third of licensees failing each year. One charge per sale: the Family Name Royalty covers trade under the master's own name, the Heritage Plate fee or royalty covers licensees of the mark.

Who pays

SELF-FINANCING · BUILDS ON

What it costs

50 cents a certified plate SGD · per certified plate

A disclosed 50 cents a certified plate, priced in and shown on the menu, so diners opt in by ordering.

What it builds on

The certification-mark provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1998, administered by IPOS (§5.5).

Who gains

Diners: On a hotel menu, the Heritage Plate tells you whose dish it is and where the stall is, and sends fifty cents of your plate back to the hawker centre (§5.5).
Hawkers: No dish carries the mark without the master's consent, and checks fall on licensees' kitchens, never on hawkers' stalls (§5.5).
Families: A master's dish earns for the master's family when others cook it: 40% of licence income goes to the family (§5.5).
Government: A later, self-financing stream. Government might match it in the first three years, an idea, not yet an ask (§5.5).

Where the library discusses it

§5.5 · §3.2 · §3.7 · §3.8 · §4.4 · §7.6 · the Budget Book, B.6.1 · Hawkers and Social Protection, C.8.1 · the Budget Book, B.9 · the Budget Book, B.9.5

Note: Licence income is a later stream and not a gift, so it is not matched under §7.6. Follow the Plate models licensing at 15, 80, 220 and 400 outlets in Years 3–6 and about 1,000 certified plates an outlet a month, plus a 3% royalty on packaged goods (packaged sales scaled from $1M to $20M); the plan does not state the royalty rate (the Budget Book, B.9.5). A Government match on licence income for the first three years, up to $2M a year in the model, is an idea, not an ask (§5.5, Hawkers and Social Protection, C.8.1).