A.7What Only This Plan Does – and Where It Builds on Others

What no scheme does yet. Across Government (A.2.1–A.1.1) and everyone in the table above, we found no scheme doing any of the following. Granted, our search was wide, not exhaustive, so "found no scheme" is the honest claim; and here and there a private deal or a one-off project has done part of the job.

Paying the goodwill (what a stall's name, recipes and regulars are worth when it changes hands). No scheme pays a retiring hawker for his goodwill; the few private sales are one-off deals. The Hawkers Succession Scheme pays the veteran about $5,000 in all, as reported, and its FAQ says it "is not intended to replace commercial arrangements". Private sales happen, one deal at a time: the Sin Kee chicken-rice recipe, with training in running the stall, was sold for $42,800 to each of two buyers (The Straits Times, 2016). No scheme finances or guarantees them (Succession Economics, E.3, E.4).
A pool of relief cooks. Two routes already let someone else run a stall: since 2012 a stallholder may appoint a joint operator to share its hours, and a hawker who falls ill may appoint a joint operator or a nominee (MSE, 11 Nov 2024 and 10 Mar 2025). We found no roster, platform or scheme that sends a relief cook so a hawker can take a day off without closing. Yet the personal-operation rule is enforced (the Plan, §2.7).
Critical-illness cover for stallholders. Group term life reaches some merchants' workers; we found no group critical-illness cover for stallholders themselves, and the plan provides it (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.10). Repairs are another matter. The State already repairs and upgrades the centres, through repairs and redecoration every six to eight years and the Hawker Centres Upgrading Programme 2.0 (up to $1bn over 20–30 years from March 2025, ventilation included), and the law makes the stallholder keep his stall's own exhaust duct clean. What no scheme funds today is a stall's own equipment and duct upkeep, while the Hawkers' Productivity Grant is between phases. This plan leaves all three where they are (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.10).
An income top-up for new cooks. Training, subsidised stalls, micro-loans and allowances exist: the HDP (Hawkers' Development Programme, the Government's course for new hawkers) pays up to $1,000 a month through apprenticeship and incubation, and Temasek Polytechnic's track pays $1,000 a month for 12 months. The nearest thing to the Graduate Landing Package, Kopitiam's HawkerBoss, subsidises rent and staff wages for a year in its own outlets. What no scheme offers is a top-up to the hawker's own income for two years after he opens his stall (the Budget Book, B.16).
A standing archive good enough to cook from. Tested recipes exist as one-off books, Temasek Polytechnic's 25 hawker classics (2015) among them. No scheme keeps a hawker's recipes in a standing archive good enough to cook from, and NHB's inventory entry for hawker culture lists recipe books but holds no recipes (the Plan, §3.2).
An endowment for hawker heritage, and help for ill hawkers. The matching machinery exists; the endowment does not. Apart from the Foochow fund of 1956, we found no hardship fund for hawkers. There was once a hardship scheme of another kind, which let stalls to people in hardship; it ended in 1990 for low take-up (the share of those eligible who join), and the Government declined to revive it when the Workers' Party asked in 2021 (MSE, Committee of Supply, 4 Mar 2021). When illness shuts the stall, the help is means-tested ComCare (paid only to those whose income and property fall below set limits), or a private medical-leave policy a hawker must buy for himself; more often it is a notice on the shutter and an appeal on social media (the Plan, §2.7, Hawkers and Social Protection, C.10, the Plan, §2.11, the Budget Book, B.6).

Nor does any scheme we checked, here or abroad, combine all four things the Succession Mortgage does (Succession Economics, E.4): a price for the stall's goodwill tied to its takings; payments held by a neutral party (escrow); a guarantee if the successor fails; and a protected minimum income for the successor. Nor does any scheme pay a royalty that runs to the master's family (Succession Economics, E.5), or return a per-plate fee to that family (the Plan, §5.5). To be sure, parts of each exist in ordinary business sales and brand licensing: seller finance, earn-outs, franchise royalties.

Not new, and said so. Some of this plan has been proposed or done before. Where it has, we name it, say where I agree and where I do not, and build on it:

The Government's own panels, first. Much of what follows was put to the Government by panels it set up itself, and they are credited before any party (A.2.1). The Hawker Centres Public Consultation Panel of 2011–12 proposed rents "pre-determined" by food type, at "a certain percentage of the market rent … assessed through professional valuation" (¶18); priority for individuals over companies (¶17); central bulk purchases (¶12); an institution for traditional and heritage hawker food (¶14); and family assignment where it would keep a heritage dish alive (¶19). The Hawker Centre 3.0 Committee's eleven recommendations, all accepted in March 2017, included training in "traditional hawker fare" (Recommendation 1), bulk purchasing (Recommendation 5) and "the retention of traditional hawker food" when stalls fall vacant (Recommendation 9); I found no programme that does the last at NEA's own centres. The bands, the qualification gate, the Buying Circles, the apprenticeship and the Registry stand on those ideas (Follow the Plate, D.14, D.16, the Budget Book, B.15, the Plan, §3.6). What the plan adds is who pays, where it is tested, and what the evaluator publishes.
The ballot. What was proposed. On 13 November 2024 Leong Mun Wai, then a Non-Constituency MP of the Progress Singapore Party, moved a motion on hawker culture. In his speech he proposed allocating stalls "by a random ballot within each food category", at a rent of "$500 or 3% of Gross Turnover, whichever is higher" – a turnover rent with a minimum, not a flat rent – with "a sixth category, namely heritage foods" (his words, as his party published them). In the same debate Hazel Poa, also then a PSP Non-Constituency MP, proposed replacing the tender with a ballot and "a pre-determined rent structure" (her speech, as her party published it). A month earlier, on 14 October 2024, Melvin Yong, the People's Action Party MP for Radin Mas, asked whether a ballot "at a fixed rental rate targeted at cost recovery" had been considered: a rent set to cover the centre's costs, not one tied to turnover. Louis Chua of the Workers' Party, in the same debate, asked instead for the price-only tender to be phased out for a price-quality method weighing pricing, operating hours, young entrepreneurs and heritage value, and for a rent cap.
What the Government said. The Government answered in October that the tender lets first-time tenderers win stalls below market rent, which "would not be attainable under a model where stalls are allocated at fixed rental rates": about one in five cooked-food stalls went for $500 or less in 2023, and the median (the middle figure: half are above it, half below) winning bid was about $1,800. In the debate, Dr Koh Poh Koon, the Senior Minister of State, gave four objections (MSE, 13 Nov 2024). A ballot could "encourage frivolous applications and excess demand for stalls". A fixed rent at the assessed market rent (NEA's valuation of what a stall would fetch) would mean "close to about half of tenderers will see their rent much higher than it is today", since 44% had won below it. A rent cap would pull bids up to the ceiling; answering the Workers' Party's Louis Chua, he said it could "well mean the end of the $1 bid stalls that we have in the system today". And few stalls pay above their valuation. As he corrected it by written statement the same day: "Out of around 7,000 cooked food stalls, only 4% of rent today are above their Assessed Market Rent which has a median of around $1,250". Each stall is measured against its own assessed rent, not against $1,250, so record bids are rare cases. Leong's turnover rent drew a separate objection: it would need a point-of-sale system in every stall. The House passed, with the PSP's support, the motion as amended by Edward Chia, the People's Action Party MP for Holland–Bukit Timah, calling on the Government "to continue its support for hawkers by regularly reviewing its policies relating to hawkers and the management of hawker centres" and ending "while enabling hawkers to earn a fair livelihood"; no Member recorded dissent. It was the ballot, not the motion, that the Government turned down.
Where I stand. I agree that stalls should be allocated by ballot rather than by the highest bid. I do not agree with one fixed rent, or with a rent tied to turnover: the Government's objections to both are fair ones. So Follow the Plate, D.14 keeps the ballot and answers each objection: a qualification gate in place of open entry, bands calibrated to NEA's own assessed market rent in place of one rent, no bidding inside a band and so no ceiling to bid towards, a priority for heritage dishes, and a pilot at three centres, where the evaluator publishes the entrants' rents beside what the tender would have charged.
Quality in the tender. Members on both sides of the House have asked for tenders that weigh more than price. Leon Perera of the Workers' Party proposed tasting committees in 2021; Louis Chua's price-quality method, above, came in 2024; in the same debate Liang Eng Hwa of the People's Action Party said "we should also look at the quality of the bid", and Mariam Jaafar, also of the PAP, proposed feedback from diners and hawkers in quality-method tenders; and on 6 October 2026 Jamus Lim of the Workers' Party asked for tender criteria beyond "raw bid prices alone" (Official Report). HDB (Housing & Development Board, Singapore's public-housing landlord) already tenders its coffeeshops this way. Since 2018, 40 of its 65 eating-house tenders under the price-quality method went to someone other than the highest bidder, at about $38 a square metre a month less (MND, 4 Aug 2026). I read the qualification gate and the Taste Council as close kin of that line: price alone is a poor test of a cook (Follow the Plate, D.14, the Plan, §5.2).
A foreign hand at the stall. In the same debate Leong proposed letting each stall employ one work permit holder as an assistant; Dr Koh called the idea "not inconceivable" while warning that full liberalisation "may alter the nature of our hawker centres significantly". In the same debate Louis Chua of the Workers' Party suggested that letting hawkers aged 60 and above employ at most one foreign work pass holder "should be studied". The ask is not one party's. People's Action Party backbenchers have made it too: Dr Tan Yia Swam asked in April 2023 for hawkers over 60 to hire one foreign worker for food preparation; Jessica Tan asked in February 2026 for graduated foreign-worker and levy thresholds for hawkers and small food businesses; and Foo Cexiang asked at the Committee of Supply in March 2026 for work-permit assistants at stalls more than ten years old. On 6 October 2026 Jamus Lim of the Workers' Party proposed Malaysian stall assistants (Official Report). The Government has answered at least six times since 2023, and each time kept the rule. On 10 September 2026 Kenneth Tiong of the Workers' Party asked why work permit holders may work in coffeeshops and food courts but not in hawker centres. The Minister, Grace Fu, left the rules as they are: stallholders are citizens and permanent residents who run their own stalls, "Hawker centres are a unique part of Singapore's cultural heritage and it is important to preserve the local identity", and long-term visit pass holders, about 300 of them at 1 August 2026, work as stall assistants (MSE, 10 Sep 2026). Version 1.2 of this plan proposed a narrower pass for one foreign apprentice a stall. I have moved it to Ideas for Later (the Plan, §2.8, Method, Levers and Data, F.9).
An academy and an archive. In an adjournment motion of 3 August 2021, Leon Perera of the Workers' Party proposed a national Hawker Academy, the documentation of heritage recipes and a move away from tendering, preferring tasting committees to a random ballot. In 2024 the PSP proposed a hawker academy for young hawkers and succession planning, and Louis Chua of the Workers' Party proposed consolidating the Government's hawker programmes "under a single, independent hawker academy" and going "back to the drawing board" on the Hawkers' Development Programme and the Hawkers' Succession Scheme. Dr Koh answered both: "In fact, we already have a similar academy in place", the Asian Culinary Institute at Nanyang Polytechnic, which runs the Hawkers' Development Programme (Official Report, 13 Nov 2024). He has a point, and the plan does not build a second academy: the apprenticeship takes its entrants from the HDP's classroom stages and adds what they lack, eighteen months at a master's side. The apprenticeship (the Budget Book, B.15), the archive (the Plan, §3.2) and the Taste Council (the Plan, §5.2) build on those ideas; the Seed Bank is independent but does not replace NEA's schemes, and Succession Economics, E.3 extends the Hawkers Succession Scheme, keeping it and adding to it. On the ballot I part company with the 2021 motion, for the reasons in Follow the Plate, D.14.
Paying for the cheap plate. In his 2021 motion Leon Perera of the Workers' Party proposed discount cards for lower-income Singaporeans, so that food at operator-run centres stays affordable without forcing stalls to cut prices. In the 2024 debate the PSP proposed that the Government, not hawkers, fund targeted food discounts, give lower-income households more CDC vouchers (Government vouchers for every household) and stop requiring hawkers to offer budget meals at their own cost. In the same debate Louis Chua of the Workers' Party proposed meal discounts for CHAS cardholders whose cost "should not be imposed on the hawkers, but on the Government instead", and that hawkers "should have the freedom of setting their own prices" rather than meet mandated budget-meal prices (his speech, as his party published it); he repeated the CHAS discount at the Committee of Supply in March 2026. I agree with both parties on this: the public, not the hawker, should pay for the cheap plate, and the hawker should set the price. The Makan Vouchers (Follow the Plate, D.15) are one way to do it, through the CDC voucher system.
The Taste Council builds on the Hawkers Succession Scheme's tasting evaluation, judged by the veteran, NEA (National Environment Agency, which runs the public hawker centres) and an independent advisory panel (the Incubation Stall Programme has a tasting too). It adds a blind protocol, retired masters only, and a published scale (the Plan, §5.2).
Recipe documentation has been done well, one project at a time: NHB's 25 short documentaries on hawkers' stories and recipes (2015), Temasek Polytechnic's tested recipes for 25 hawker classics (2015), the Chitty Melaka and TTSH books, SCCC's exhibition. None was kept as a standing archive (the Plan, §3.2).
Buying together has been tried and proposed. Some operators of socially-conscious enterprise centres already offer bulk purchasing, and the Minister told Parliament that take-up has not been widespread (MSE, written reply to Edward Chia, 10 Jan 2024). In the debate of 13 November 2024 Hazel Poa, a Non-Constituency MP of the Progress Singapore Party, proposed a centralised procurement system in which a new agency would contract with wholesalers and hawkers could choose to buy through it (her speech, as her party published it). Replying, Dr Koh noted that operators' bulk-buying offers had drawn little take-up. I share the aim of cheaper ingredients for hawkers. I do not agree with a single national buyer, even an optional one: it would narrow the competition among Singapore's suppliers, not widen it. Follow the Plate, D.16 proposes hawker-led circles instead, in which the Seed Bank never buys, stocks or picks a supplier: small circles at each centre, run by the hawkers through their own association, with suppliers competing on an open board and no designated supplier.
Stipends for masters exist, but are small: about $5,000 in all under the Hawkers Succession Scheme, as reported ($1,500 a month for the three-month apprenticeship and $500 for the optional mentoring; NEA publishes no amount), and up to $25,000 with a Stewards of Intangible Cultural Heritage award ($5,000 in cash and up to $20,000 for transmission projects). The Fellowship pays $69,000 over three years – a teaching year at $2,500 a month, two years of stewardship at $1,000 a month and a $15,000 completion grant – plus up to $15,000 of health cover and employer CPF: real pay, not a token, and no sudden stop when the teaching year ends (the Budget Book, B.13).

Borrowed from abroad – and one thing we avoid.

France's Maître d'art (since 1994): a jury pairs a master of rare know-how with one apprentice for three years, and the national crafts institute (INMA, renamed the Institut pour les Savoir-Faire Français on 21 March 2024) pays the master's workshop for the time spent teaching. It is the template for the Fellowship (the Budget Book, B.13).
The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana's collective mark (a fee per location, a binding specification, revocation for breach) and Thailand's Thai SELECT (a state mark carried by about 1,800–2,200 Thai restaurants abroad, renewed every three years) are the models for the Heritage Plate (the Plan, §5.5).
San Francisco's Legacy Business Program (a registry from 2015, and a fund its voters approved that November) is the nearest precedent for public money that keeps heritage small businesses alive. It also carries two lessons: its grant per employee was dropped as hard for micro businesses to document, and its rent grants, paid to landlords, drew criticism. That is why support here follows the hawker, not the stall (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.12, the Budget Book, B.6).
France's replacement tax credit for farmers (60% of a relief worker's cost, for up to 17 days' leave a year, extended to 2027) and Japan's dairy-helper organisations (86 in Hokkaido alone) are the models for the Relief-Hawker Corps (the Plan, §2.7).
Hong Kong's dai pai dong are the warning. Hong Kong has issued no new hawker licences "under normal circumstances" since 1972 (LCQ3, 22 Mar 2017). A dai pai dong licence issued before May 2010 passes to a spouse or, with the district's support, to a child – FEHD approved a mother-to-son and a father-to-son succession in 2021 and 2023 (LCQ21, 10 Jul 2024) – and one issued since then passes to no one. The stalls have all but gone. Succession rights decide whether a street-food form survives (Succession Economics, E.3, E.4).
Penang is the contrast. From 2016 its council-managed premises have barred foreign cooks, enforced through the licence. A 2024 proposal to extend the bar to 13 named dishes was not in force in January 2026, when the mayor said a bylaw was not needed (Malay Mail, 6 Jan 2026). That protects taste by licensing who may cook. This plan certifies one master's dish and pays the master; it never restricts who may cook it (the Plan, §3.7, §5.5).

Where the plan builds on others.

The 2011–12 Public Consultation Panel and the Hawker Centre 3.0 Committee, credited first; the FMAS (Federation of Merchants' Associations, Singapore, the hawkers' trade body) model, read as wide reach without decision rights or a welfare fund (A.2.1).
The 2024 ballot proposals, named: the ballot kept, the fixed and the turnover rent not, and an answer to each of the Government's objections; the operator-run centres' fixed, capped rents as a precedent at home; NEA's temporary rent support of 2026–27, which the fee subsidy follows (Follow the Plate, D.14).
The Foochow association as a first partner, and the coffeeshop stallholders the 2026 rent support does not reach (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.12).
The Makan Vouchers beside CDC meal credits, Project Belanja!, grassroots meal cards and bank cashback; the Compact funded, never contractual (Follow the Plate, D.15).
NEA's Joint Operator Scheme and nominee route, made faster and given a short-cover version; local recruitment and training for the pool of relief cooks (the Plan, §2.7). The foreign-apprentice idea, credited to a proposal made in Parliament in 2024 and deferred after the Government's reply of 2026 (the Plan, §2.8).
Operators' bulk buying, on an open board beside other suppliers; the aim of the 2024 centralised-procurement proposal, without a national buyer; Hawkers United – Dabao 2020 for commission-free orders; Hazel Poa's point on designated suppliers, taken up as an ask of NEA (Follow the Plate, D.16).
The FMAS–NTUC group cover, extended rather than duplicated; the State's repairs and the Hawker Centres Upgrading Programme 2.0, left where they are (Hawkers and Social Protection, C.10).
The Plate Ledger publishes costs, and takes prices from those who already collect them (Method, Levers and Data, F.6).
A retirement match for stallholders under 55; from 55, help to claim the existing Matched Retirement Savings Scheme, for those who pass its income and home tests (the Plan, §2.11, §1.4, Hawkers and Social Protection, C.8.1, the Budget Book, B.7 and Method, Levers and Data, F.9).
Existing documentation and training credited, the Master Hawker Programme and the 2021 call for a Hawker Academy among them; Temasek Polytechnic, Hawker Boys, ITE and Kopitiam's HawkerBoss as partners; the archive and the Registry pointed at Singapore's next UNESCO report, as the means of a monitoring it has already promised; NHB's consent forms and its clause giving the IP to practitioners as the Genome's precedent (the Plan, §3.2–3.4 and §3.6).
The Hawker Council works with FMAS and the centre associations, not around them, and FMAS holds a voting seat on it; the 2018–20 UNESCO nomination committee (co-chaired by NHB, NEA and FMAS; FMAS itself is a standing federation) asked back as a permanent body (the Budget Book, B.14 and B.7).
The Fellowship, the Taste Council and the Heritage Plate, each set against what exists here and abroad (the Budget Book, B.13, the Plan, §5.2 and §5.5).
PA facilitators and NEA grants for public engagement; the Lighthouses (the first two pilot centres, Chinatown Complex and Geylang Serai) and the pilot centres at any government hawker centre, ranked by where the heritage-worthy stalls (the stalls that food guides and heritage records already name) are, with the Town Council as a partner where it manages the centre (the Plan, §6.2.1, §6.3 and §6.6).
Arts and Heritage registration for the Cultural Matching Fund; the CDC Vouchers Donation Scheme; a standing pledge in place of campaigns (the Budget Book, B.6.1 and B.6.2).

Many hands already help the hawker, and this plan would rather join them than compete. Still, no scheme among them yet holds the hand-over itself: the goodwill, the relief day, the recipe written down well enough to cook from. That is the work this plan claims as its own – and should be judged on.