The quality of the hawker centres and food courts has been given a leg up with graduates joining the business, like graduates driving grabs for a living. This is upgrading from the quality of the labour being injected into the trade. So far, other than a few optics on such a trend changing event, the focus is on the quality of food preparation and maybe presentation. But how much can be changed other than having food prepared by graduates or served by graduates? The tertiary education may help in food hygiene perhaps.
What can graduates bring into this traditional trade that illiterate grandpa and grandma can do and even do better? Cashless payments using apps in mobile phones like restaurants may look cool and chic. Expanding into home delivery using apps and delivery services could add another dimension to the business. What really may be game changing is AI and robotics. How about that? Getting robots to do the cooking and serving? China is already having these, with robotic coffee maker. To go further and deeper, let the AI to start evaluating the food preparation, food quality. Health value may be another way to go. Oops, AI and robotics may replace the human labour in the trade, top most and most convenient will be table cleaners and dishwashers.
The professionals in the business would have many better ideas on how to adapt AI and robotics to upgrade the hawking business and take it to the next level. All hawker centres and food courts will be run and served by AI machines, food vending machines and robotics, and the graduates can stay behind the curtain to manage the change, the apps and machine learning.
Traditional business and trade are cute and emotional to be preserved for posterity. But to remain viable in the future when the returns have to be good enough to retain graduates, when more than 50% of the population will be graduates, and to compete with foreign talents, hawking and food business need to do more than what it is doing now to survive. Instead of Michelin Stars, have stalls hanging up graduate degrees and diplomas. Otherwise, other than a few graduates to keep some freshness in the trade, it will eventually be taken over by cheaper and more hardworking foreigners.
Just some fanciful musing.
Upgrading the hawking talents will undoubtedly upgrade the price of food. Food at hawker centers and coffeeshops are now quite expensive, for me as a retiree, a fact that I have been seeing especially over the last couple of years.
ReplyDeleteOh, it has nothing to do with bidding for coffeeshops with big chains able to afford high bids to beat down the competition and passing the costs to vendors who in turn pass those costs to customers. I thought hawker centers pay cheaper rents, but it is all a matter of following the leader.
Let us hope the Singapore dream can continue.
Wah..never in my life as someone who bo ta che can have a graduate to cook for me, but hor the food price will also be graduate price le..so how?
ReplyDeleteNext, when you see hawkers displaying their PhDs, expect the food price to rival those Michelin tire outfits. From first world to celestial world.
ReplyDeleteSingapore's AI and high tech drive depending on third world talents are going no where. So going to hawking is about the only thing that can be done. Making hawking and food preparation the next high tech industry.
ReplyDeleteI won't eat any hokkien mee fried by a robot!
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