Singapore studying food donations past 'best by' date; MPs back motion on food resilience, waste reduction

Singapore studying food donations past 'best by' date; MPs back motion on food resilience, waste reduction Each person in Singapore generates about 128kg of food waste annually, said MP Poh Li San, one of the motion’s proposers. SINGAPORE: The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is studying how safe it is to allow food past its “best by” date to be donated, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Goh Hanyan said on Wednesday (Sep 9). This could help to reduce food waste by allowing more edible food to be redistributed rather than discarded. Ms Goh was speaking in parliament during the debate on a motion tabled by the People’s Action Party’s Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for sustainability and the environment. The motion by GPC chair Ms Poh Li San, deputy chair Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin, and members Ms Valerie Lee and Mr Ng Shi Xuan calls on the government to “enhance food resilience and support efforts to reduce food waste through partnerships with all of society”. This is to “ensure Singaporeans have access to affordable food supply amidst geopolitical uncertainties and climate-related risks”. Parliament passed the motion with no amendments after more than four hours of debate. Quality-based date-marks like “best before” and “best used before” differ from safety-based date-marks like “expiry date”. Food manufacturers use a variety of date-marks on their packaging, and there are currently no international guidelines on how long food stays safe for consumption after the expiry date, said Ms Goh. “SFA is thus embarking on a study to assess the safety and feasibility of allowing food that has passed quality-based date-marks to be donated, while maintaining food safety standards,” she said. SFA has stepped up engagement with businesses this year to better understand date-marking practices, said the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE). The agency is finalising its review and more details will be announced in 2027. The government should enhance food resilience and support efforts to reduce food waste through partnerships with all of society. This would ensure that Singaporeans have access to affordable food supply amidst geopolitical uncertainties and climate-related risks. MP Poh Li San moved this motion in parliament on Wednesday (Sep 9), saying that Singapore would be better off producing more food locally, wasting less and keeping food prices more affordable. She called for a more coordinated food import policy and food redistribution ecosystem. She also stressed the need to treat local food production capability as part of Singapore’s total defence security. She urged the government to increase its support to boost the local food production and self-sufficiency rate to at least 30 per cent. Turning to food waste, the government should create a more circular food ecosystem so that uncooked food is rescued, redistributed and consumed. Ms Poh also called for stronger support for food charity groups. One way is to have a nationwide community dining ecosystem, with small-scale pilots across various towns. CLOSING FOOD WASTE LOOP Singapore generated 790,000 tonnes of food waste in 2025 – about 11 per cent of the total waste generated in the country. This works out to about 128kg of food waste per person, Ms Poh said in her speech introducing the private member’s motion. Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food from around the world, and people are becoming anxious about rising food costs, she said. Ms Poh called for a “more coordinated food import policy and food redistribution ecosystem”, and for society to leverage the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act to redistribute more rescued food to benefit low-income families and seniors. This entails having more and better data. “Without visibility and coordination of the total amount of food that is being imported, we could actually be importing way more than our 6.1 million population can consume,” she said. She called on SFA to connect existing food import and food waste data sets, which are collected across different agencies, to improve tracking and insights. "SFA should also track donation volumes by major food suppliers and incentivise them to donate the food items before expiry date,” she said. Land-use plans can change and be rezoned, but farming capability is much harder to recreate once it is gone, said MP Nadia Ahmad Samdin. Citing plots in southern Lim Chu Kang, she said their tenures will expire by next year, though work for their future defence use may only start from 2030. She asked for a clearer framework for interim farm use, instead of leaving land unused. Where farms have to exit, transition support should also recognise the costs of relocating productive systems and preserving some useful capability, she said. Ms Nadia also spoke about making farms more viable, helping farmers capture more value from their produce and improving their access to more markets beyond the fresh produce shelf. Regionally, she suggested exploring a small number of mutually beneficial agri-food pilots with Malaysia and Indonesia - for instance, in climate-resilient production or green lanes for efficient movement of time-sensitive food. She spoke in parliament on Wednesday (Sep 9). Ms Poh called for more seed funding, grants and tax rebates to support start-ups that have innovative solutions to closing the food waste loop. These include digital platforms like Treatsure and Yindii that allow users to buy unsold food at the end of the day at discounted prices; D2L, which works directly with businesses to divert food and product waste; and Ento and WasteMaster, which turn food waste into fish feed. Charities like Food Bank, Food Rescue Sengkang and Fridge Restock Community should also receive more support and recognition so they can grow their volunteer base and scale up food rescue and redistribution efforts, she said. GPC member Ms Lee said logistical bottlenecks like storage pose a major challenge to food rescue groups. Food surplus may only be available for a short window, and the food rescuer may need to mobilise volunteers and refrigerated transport, and do sorting and distribution within hours, she said. She asked the government to identify suitable land or spaces that can be used for community food rescue storage, especially to support existing networks. Interim spaces, shared facilities or under-utilised areas can be adapted for food storage, she said, pointing to unused space around Changi as an example. Similarly, MP Fadli Fawzi (WP-Aljunied) said many food rescue groups rely on volunteers and operate with limited resources while facing high costs to transport large quantities of donated food. He said the government could do more to support ground-up food rescue initiatives through financial grants and logistical assistance. Mr Fadli suggested setting up a government-run centralised platform that connects local food businesses directly with neighbourhood food rescue charities, so that surplus food can reach those in need more quickly. Ms Poh also proposed a nationwide community-dining ecosystem to provide fresh, hot meals made with rescued food to seniors and lower-income families. She suggested that these meals could be served at convenient locations in every neighbourhood. The government should consider giving local farms longer leases of 30 years or 20+20 years, so that farmers have more certainty for long-term planning and investment. The leases could be tied to clear production targets and periodic reviews. MP Fadli Fawzi made this suggestion in parliament on Wednesday (Sep 9). He said while land optimisation is important, the current approach does not offer enough consideration for the fact that agriculture relies on long horizons. He also proposed strengthening Singapore’s position as a regional food transshipment and manufacturing hub. This would enable it to “enjoy the same resilience benefit” it got from being an oil refining hub during the fuel supply crisis caused by the Iran war earlier this year. RESPONSE TO FOOD WASTE PROPOSALS Ms Goh responded that MSE will take these suggestions into account in its ongoing review of Singapore’s Zero Waste Masterplan. Acknowledging the GPC’s proposals, she said timely information, effective coordination and practical logistics arrangements are critical for food redistribution networks. Many of these enterprises have built their networks and matching capabilities as part of their value proposition, she said. “As we consider how information flows can be improved to enhance ecosystem-wide coordination, we must do it in a way that preserves the innovation and competitive strengths that underpin these precise solutions.” She said the government’s approach follows a clear hierarchy of first avoiding food waste, then keeping edible food within the system, and finally recovering value from unavoidable food waste. For mixed food waste, which cannot be valorised into useful products like animal feed, Ms Goh added that recovering energy is a more suitable option. This will be done through co-digestion at the Food Waste Treatment Facility at Tuas Nexus, which is expected to start operations in the second half of 2028. It will be able to treat about 18 per cent of Singapore’s annual food waste generated when fully operational. “We are finalising the fee structure at Tuas Nexus and considering how best to encourage businesses to divert food waste for treatment instead of incineration,” said Ms Goh. Responding to Ms Poh’s proposal for a nationwide community-dining ecosystem, Ms Goh said the government broadly shares this vision, pointing to hawker centres as the heart of the existing network that provides affordable food close to home. “Our approach to hawker centres is deliberate and unique. We view them as social infrastructure that keeps affordable food options within the reach of Singaporeans, while strengthening community ties,” she added. SUPPORTING LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION Beyond food redistribution, the GPC members proposed changes including more support for local food production, spanning local farming, strengthening supply chains and developing alternative proteins. Ms Poh called for the government to review increasing support for local food production and to raise Singapore's food self-sufficiency rate to at least 30 per cent. She said that domestic production could provide a buffer against supply disruptions. Ms Nadia similarly called for local production to be a strategic capability and to think of the farming sector as a "portfolio of capabilities", rather than expect every farm to adopt the same model. She asked whether support could be given to different categories of farms – including smaller, community-based or more diverse farms – based not only on tonnes produced per hectare, but also their resilience value through different crops, species, and farming methods. At a regional level, Ms Nadia proposed that Singapore explore agri-food pilots in climate-resilient production and cold-chain solutions with Malaysia and Indonesia. Ms Lee proposed strengthening the resilience of supply chains alongside diversifying food sources. "Having more than 180 sources is valuable. But we should ask: do these sources depend on common shipping routes, ports, cold-chain infrastructure, logistics providers? "If several suppliers are affected by the same chokepoint, our diversification may not provide as much resilience as we expect," she said. She suggested taking partnerships with other countries further by designing the pathway for food to reach Singapore, factoring in alternative ports or shipping routes, and whether regulatory approvals can be activated quickly, among other considerations. Mr Ng proposed shifting the approach from “grow local” towards “produce local”, leveraging technology and innovation. He suggested that the government clarify the long-term role it sees for alternative proteins, accelerate commercialisation and preserve capabilities in the sector. His proposals included broadening the scope of Market Readiness Assistance grants for food-production companies to cover areas such as overseas certification and regulatory approvals so that companies can scale in overseas markets. MP Dennis Tan (WP-Hougang) proposed a GST exemption on local food carrying the SG Fresh Produce logo, and lower corporate tax rates or more tax concessions for SFA-licensed agricultural enterprises. Listen: RESPONSE TO FARMING PROPOSALS Responding to calls to boost local production, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said the government's approach is to help farms build capabilities and scale, rather than permanently offset their higher operating costs. She said Singapore had "refreshed" its local production targets to build the capability and capacity to supply 20 per cent of local fibre consumption and 30 per cent of local protein consumption by 2035. Growing local is one of four key pillars under Singapore Food Story 2, its main strategy for food resilience. Since 2019, more than S$240 million (US$190 million) has been set aside to support local production, she said. The Agri-food Cluster Transformation Fund, established in 2021, helps farms adopt technologies and build capabilities, resulting in productivity improvements. The government offers targeted and time-limited assistance during periods of shock, Ms Fu said, citing the one-off Farm Business Resilience Support grant introduced in July to help local farms cope with cost pressures from the Middle East conflict. More than 80 farms have applied over the past month. On demand for local produce, Ms Fu said SFA is supporting the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation to aggregate supply from farms and match it with demand. Ms Fu said the aim was not simply to increase the number of farms, subsidise operating costs indefinitely or guarantee demand, but to help farms make structural changes, gain economies of scale and become more viable over the long term. Responding to Mr Ng's call to clarify the long-term strategy on alternative proteins, Ms Fu said the global alternative protein industry has faced headwinds, including weaker-than-expected consumer acceptance. The government has supported more than 50 alternative protein projects with about S$130 million in research and development funding. For cell-based proteins, this includes efforts to reduce production costs and scale up manufacturing, while work on plant-based proteins includes improving their nutrition, taste and texture. The minister said that Singapore has built a food system that has "weathered a pandemic, conflicts, and climate stresses". "This resilience is the result of deliberate choices and collective effort by the government, the industry, and our people. It must be renewed with every generation," she added. “Our commitment is clear: whatever happens beyond our shores, our essential food needs will be met.”