Why does FairPrice feel it is important to Do Good?
As a social enterprise, we are driven by our social mission to Do Good for the community. The framework of our community programmes is structured to provide assistance to the less fortunate and more importantly, to empower the beneficiaries in the longer term.
What is FairPrice’s role as a social enterprise?
NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd was founded by the labour movement in 1973, with a social mission to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore. Guided by the philosophy to do well in order to do good for the community, FairPrice continues to evolve to remain relevant to changing consumer lifestyles while staying focused on its social goals and making life better for the community.
NTUC FairPrice launched FairPrice Foundation in 2008 to focus its giving efforts to provide a better life for the community.
For more information, please visit: https://www1.fairpricegroup.com.sg/fairprice-foundation/
Where does the FairPrice Foundation get their funding from?
FairPrice Foundation is funded exclusively by NTUC FairPrice. Over the last ten years, FairPrice has disbursed over S$100 million to the community through FairPrice Foundation.
Who benefits from FairPrice’s Do Good efforts?
The Foundation’s grant-making philosophy revolves around its mission to contribute “A Better Life for the Community” and is focused on the three following areas:
How can an individual contribute to FairPrice’s Do Good efforts?
In selected initiatives, such as the FairPrice Share-A-Textbook project, we invite public volunteers to join us in the project so that the project acts as a catalyst to nurture the sense of community spirit and they too, can play a part for the community and the environment. Follow our social media channels to find out more.
Social enterprises focus on fulfilling social objectives, which can be funded by its commercial activities or through donations (non-profit). For FairPrice, our mandate is to be self-sustaining commercially so that we may continue to fulfill our social commitments. We do not receive any form of funding from the public or private sector.
How much profit is FairPrice making? Shouldn’t this be minimised in the interest of the community?
FairPrice is guided by our philosophy to Do Well in order to Do Good for the community. Our customers can be assured that for every dollar spent at FairPrice, part of it will go towards helping someone in the community live a better life.
In FY2020, profits from operations translates to less than 1% of our revenue over the same period.
Financial details can be found at: https://www1.fairpricegroup.com.sg/media-and-reports/reports/
Comparing a basket of daily essential products, FairPrice consistently offers the best value – making them easily available and accessible in our efforts to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore.
When comparing prices, shoppers should consider factors such as consistent availability, the product’s country of origin, expiry dates as well as food safety standards that the retailer practices. It is a common promotion strategy for some retailers to offer certain products as “loss-leaders” to attract customers.
Some of the initiatives we adopt to ensure savings for customers include:
Price taker As a retailer, we are a price taker and the products we offer are from authorised distributors. Nonetheless, we work with our suppliers to ensure any adjustments in prices are reasonable and justifiable. Consumers should be wary of products, especially consumables that are not sourced from authorised suppliers as they might not have any avenue for recourse should there be issues with the product.
Diversified sources To ensure daily essentials remain affordable and available, we diversify our sources to ensure consumers have the choice and flexibility to make an informed decision.
For example, we source fresh and frozen chicken from Malaysia, Brazil, Thailand, Denmark and the United States to ensure we are not overly reliant on any one source.
Housebrands As part of our efforts to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore, we developed an extensive range of housebrand products including chilled & frozen products, groceries like rice, oil, canned food and condiments, dairy products, and non-food items, that are priced about 10 to 20 per cent cheaper than comparable products in the market. These products are made by reputable manufacturers and are subject to extensive quality and safety audits.
For instance, our popular FairPrice Jasmine Fragrant Rice (5kg) and FairPrice Brown Rice (5kg) have maintained their prices of S$8.20* and S$11.20* respectively for the past 4 years. Our FairPrice Brown Rice (5kg) is also priced about 40 per cent lower than comparable national brands.
Times of crisis In times of crisis or economic downturn, we strive to also be the last to increase prices and first to drop prices. We also benchmark prices to ensure essentials remain affordable.
For example, when we faced severe air pollution due to the haze in 2013, it was reported that several unscrupulous merchants were profiteering by charging consumers exorbitant prices for N95 face masks. We did not sell face masks prior but tapped on our network of suppliers to promptly provide masks to consumers at fair prices, setting the benchmark for the market. Prices for N95 masks soon came down to reasonable levels.
In the recent pandemic, when Antigen Rapid Test (ART) self-test kits were made available, we priced them at extremely competitive rates. This set the benchmark and industry players soon began to price the kits they sold on par or lower than us.
Special discounts To complement these efforts we also introduced special discounts for seniors like the Seniors Discount (2002), Pioneer Generation Discount (2014) and the Merdeka Generation Discount (2019). Industry players soon followed suit and offered discount schemes that were on par or more. Regardless, our efforts proved to have spurred the market as a whole to provide greater savings to seniors.
In 2021, we also introduced the CHAS Blue Discount to provide greater savings for the less fortunate.
*Data as of August 2021
FairPrice has been operating in the HDB heartlands for over four decades and has co-existed with local businesses and residents in the community since their establishment. Our presence also often helps drive traffic to the heartland centres as well which also benefits other small businesses that each have their own role to play in the community.
FairPrice remains committed to keeping daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore and providing a better life to the community. Being situated in the heartlands, we are able to better serve the community and enhance the accessibility to basic essential grocery items for our shoppers.
FairPrice Finest was created to suit the changing lifestyle needs of consumers, where an increasing segment of the population are more well travelled and enjoy greater affluence. Catering to evolving consumer needs ensures we remain relevant as a commercial entity as by doing well, we are able to continue doing good for the community.
Despite offering a more cosmopolitan range of products, we still practise uniform pricing. So similar products across our formats will be uniformly priced regardless of where they are located, barring store specific promotion.
For example, the same bag of rice will have the same price at our Finest store in Jewel and at the FairPrice supermarket in Bedok. The only difference is that our Finest stores will offer a wider variety of rice from more exclusive or premium brands, which can sometimes give the inaccurate impression that products are more expensive.
Why are prices at FairPrice Finest more expensive than normal FairPrice supermarkets?
FairPrice Finest was created to suit the changing lifestyle needs of consumers, where an increasing segment of the population were more well travelled and enjoyed greater affluence over the years. This is to ensure we remain relevant as Singapore’s leading supermarket. By doing well, we are able to continue doing good for the community.
Despite offering a more cosmopolitan range of products, we still practise uniform pricing. So similar products across our formats will be uniformly priced regardless of where they are located, barring store specific promotions.
For example, the same bag of rice will have the same price at our Finest store in Jewel and at the FairPrice supermarket in Bedok. The only difference is that our Finest stores will offer a wider variety of rice from more exclusive or premium brands, which can sometimes give the inaccurate impression that products are more expensive.
Does FairPrice pay corporate taxes?
Co-operatives such as NTUC FairPrice, are mandated under the Co-operative Societies Act to contribute to the Central Co-operative Fund (CCF) and Singapore Labour Foundation (SLF) in place of a corporate tax.
The Co-operative Societies Act requires co-operatives to contribute 5% of their first S$500,000 in annual operating surplus to the CCF, and 20% of any operating surplus in excess of S$500,000 to either the CCF or the SLF.
The co-operative’s contributions to the CCF and the SLF will be channeled towards the general development of the co-operative movement in Singapore.
Our contribution to the CCF and SLF can be found at: https://www1.fairpricegroup.com.sg/media-and-reports/reports/
How long will BINgo be at the locations?
BINgo will be deployed at the stated locations till October 2023.
What is BINgo and what can it do?
BINgo is a smart waste sorting bin that employs artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors, to help encourage correct recycling practices and improve recycling rates. It also encompasses interactive and educational elements to help shoppers identify recyclables from non-recyclables, enabling them to recycle more and recycle correctly.
The development of BINgo was a joint effort between FairPrice Group and A*STAR. It was funded by FairPrice’s Sustainability Fund, and the technology was provided by A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech).
I am interested to partner FairPrice Group / A*STAR’s SIMTech. Who can I reach out to?
For FairPrice Group, please email us at [email protected]. You can also read more about FairPrice Group’s sustainability efforts here.
For SIMTech, please email us at [email protected]. You can also read more about A*STAR’s work in sustainability here.
Why is it important to recycle correctly?
Currently, about 40% of what goes into recycling bins cannot be recycled due to contamination.
Contamination arises when unsuitable waste are thrown into the recycling bin, such as food and liquids as well as items that cannot be recycled. When this happens, the rest of the recyclables may be contaminated and eventually be unsuitable for recycling. They will then be disposed of, incinerated, and landfilled.
What are some considerations when recycling waste materials?
You should ensure that the waste materials are recyclables, which include metal cans, glass, paper and plastic packaging. You should also check that the recyclable materials are not contaminated with food or liquids (e.g. a half-empty bubble tea cup with remnant liquid and pearls).
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