Small Is Smashing

 Your Local Economic Rice Stall Gives You Something Tastier, Cheaper and Dare I say More Nutritious compared to the Big International Fast-Food Joints.

I make no secret of the fact that I can’t stand offices. One of the best things that the circuit breaker did for me was to get me away from an office and the nonsensical power games that impotent bureaucrats need to get sexually aroused. In this day and age, I don’t see why people cannot work where they choose to work provided there is a decent enough internet connection. The only thing of value to come out of an office, from file or in a meeting is an agreement to fill more files and have more meetings.

However, while I take personal delight in the demise of the office, I need to remember that lock downs do hurt businesses like retailers and food outlets. These institutions provide many of us with a livelihood and more often than not, it affects those who are less well off.

As such, its heartening to see post on social media encouraging people to support small outlets and small businesses. One of the more encouraging ones came from my former agency junior who has since become an entrepreneur and a voice for the less fortunate.

 

While I don’t have anything personal against fast food chains, its really encouraging to see people talk about the need to support small enterprises. Having been a freelancer for the better part of my working life, I can attest to the fact that despite what the government tells you, life as an entrepreneur in Singapore is hard. Lee Kuan Yew’s most successful and unforgivable acts was to find a way of imprinting into our DNA an aversion to small, local risk takers. His message was simple, Singapore is simply too small to create economies of scale and so its best that we just do what we need to do to keep multinationals and the government happy.

While encouraging multinational investment did play a role in creating prosperity, the consistent message that Singapore is too small has ended up creating a dependency mentality. In the minds of many Singaporeans, you can’t do anything of quality unless you’ve been in the civil service or been “taught” by someone from elsewhere. I look back to the last year I did anything that I was really proud off – namely 2013 when I served the Indian Institutes of Management Alumni (IIM). This was a group that had the money to hire the likes of Hill & Knowlton but chose to go with me, a little nobody. After working for the IIM Alumni, I was invited to pitch for a job for a quasi-government agency. Before I even started on the presentation, the chairman started with “Don’t you see being a one-man show as a weakness.” The mentality of this very prominent sometime civil servant was very clear and the message to me was “You’re a nobody – shouldn’t you feel ashamed of not being part of a Western multinational?”

One of the key reasons why I’ve never bought into the “foreigners are stealing our jobs,” mode is simple. When I, a small nobody Singaporean with a proven track record of being able to do the job, it was the people from elsewhere who gave me the jobs. My “own kind” preferred to give the jobs to foreign companies. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one-man show who had that experience. A few of my friends who started their own shop admitted that their first big break was inevitably from someone from elsewhere.

So, with this background in mind, I’m really happy to see Singaporeans trying to encourage each other to support small mom and pop shops in this pandemic. The point is simple, McDonald’s and KFC can weather the storm. The small food stalls need customers.

While I’m encouraged to see people giving “moral” support to our local businesses, I believe that our support should not be based on a charitable desire but on the fact that our small businesses have the capability to deliver more value for their customers than their larger competitors from elsewhere. This fact was brought home recently when I had a look at where I was choosing to eat.

As a matte of full disclosure, I enjoy “fast-food.” There’s pleasure in KFC, McDonald’s and the rest of them. I also appreciate the business model that the fast-food outlets provide. As is often said, “Nobody can produce hamburgers at the same scale and consistency anywhere in the world in the same way that McDonald’s does.” You also have to appreciate the HR systems of the fast-food joints and how they train people.

However, I’ve found myself spending less time in fast-food restaurants because, well, I’ve found that the hawker stalls, particularly the “economic rice” stalls offer something that has more variety, tastier, cheaper and dare I say more nutritious than what the Fast-Food joints are offering.

 

My local food joint offers variety that you don’t get in a fast-food joint.

Ever since I’ve become more home based, my meals have become fairly standard. I walk out to the economic rice stall and my standard fare is rice, two vegetables and a meat (usually chicken or pork.) They’re fairly generous with the portions and the most that I’ve ever spent is six dollars (that was when I had a fish). I spend on average three to four dollars per packet. If I want a canned drink, I can either go into the nearby supermarket or visit the drink stall and pay a further two bucks (average price is around a dollar seventy).

 

While I do enjoy my fast-food, the economics of fast-food don’t make sense. KFC for example will charge three dollars and eighty cents $3.80) for a single piece of chicken:

https://www.kfc.com.sg/Menu/A-La-Carte/Chicken

 

Not to be outdone, McDonald’s sells a buttermilk crispy chicken at eight-dollars and forty cents ($8.40). That’s just a bit of chicken, a bun and a few bits of relish. If you go for the meal, the price goes up by another dollar for fries (a few wedges of potato) and a soft drink (sugar water).

 

While both KFC and McDonald’s do offer something enjoyable, I don’t think they’re offering the best value to most consumers. From my perspective as a consumer, the local economic rice stall simply offers much better value. Again, I’m not against burgers or fried chicken but why should I pay so much more for that when the local guy can give me something better.

Likewise, multinationals and big brands do offer good things that we can spend our money on. However, the question remains – are they offering the best deal. Who is to say that our local SMEs are not offering something that may have more value?

 

This skinny guy lived in a diet of rice, vegetables and a bit of meat when he had the chance. He ended up leading people in combat against three big powers and won.

 

This guy lives on a diet of fast-food. End result – overweight, scrambling for money despite proclaiming billions and based on his accusations of other people being rapist – he’s probably impotent too.