Singapore hawker centres under fire after fatal food poisoning outbreak

Singapore hawker centres under fire after fatal food poisoning outbreak

Apr 10, 2009 at 16:43:48

by Ben Bland

If food is the lifeblood of Singapore, then the many hawker centres are its arteries, ensuring that the city-state's residents are served up with a steady stream of staples, 24 hours a day.

But the ubiquitous hawker centres are under fire after two people died and more than 150 fell ill last week in Singapore's worst food poisoning outbreak in recent years.

The victims fell ill after eating a popular local dish called Indian rojak, which comprises of pieces of deep fried sea-food, tofu and vegetables smothered in a spicy sauce, at one of Singapore's busiest hawker centres, Geylang Serai.

The food poisoning outbreak, which the health ministry believes came about after the rojak sauce was contaminated by tainted raw seafood, has sparked a backlash from politicians and consumers who are unhappy with hygiene standards in food courts and hawker centres across the island nation.

The health minister Khaw Boon Wan said that hygiene standards have slipped since the SARS crisis in 2003 and he wants to see a crackdown on dirty food stalls. His comments have been echoed on the letters pages of the local papers and on various blogs and online forums.

I live about ten minutes walk away from the Geylang Serai hawker centre and wet market, which is a focal point for Singapore's Malay community, and have often eaten there in the past.

The hawker centre was closed on Wednesday and Thursday for a rather belated "spring clean" (i.e. closing the stable door after the...) designed to reassure customers. But the clean-up operation only succeeded in unearthing further problems, such as a major rat infestation.

So it was no great surprise that business was extremely slow when I popped in to Geylang Serai at lunchtime today. Normally you need a pack of tissues and very strong elbows to have any chance of getting a table but, in most parts of the hawker centre today, at least half the seats were empty.

Anyone who frequents Singapore's hawker centres will know that hygiene has never been their strong point. You often see the chefs wiping their nose on their t-shirt with gay abandon and the hawker centre staff "washing" all the plates and cutlery in the same bucket of fetid water.

But a bit of grime doesn't necessarily lead to food poisoning and major outbreaks are rare in Singapore - over the past three years, there has been an average of four food poisoning incidents related to hawker centres per annum.

Nevertheless, after such a serious incident, it looks likely that the government will launch a major drive to improve standards of cleanliness across Singapore.

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