Singapore Expats

Is it just me or has everyone else noticed how even more expensive it has become to buy western foodstuffs in the supermarkets these days?

I understand that the price of food has been going up all over the world over the last year but it seems that an even larger mark-up is going onto Western foods here in Singapore. Take a box of fish fingers for example, a year ago they were $7 and today they are $11 (>60%). Looking at the Sing dollar, it is very strong against most currencies at the moment so I would have expected the price of food to have levelled out or even decreased. If we take AUD or GBP for instance, the SGD is up about 15% over the last 4 months?

So, can anyone shed any light on why this is happening? In comparison, Hawkers have hardly increased their prices on local food so it seems to be happening to western goods only?

The fuel prices, while dropping are not yet being reflected in the goods as the shipping time lags behind the stocks on hand. However, it's not just western foodstuffs that are going up. Local Vegs & eggs are going up as well. A large chicken (by local standards that is) used to be 4.50 but there are around 6.80 as of this morning at NTUC. If you want to save 20 to 35% on your grocery bill, stay out of Cold Storage & Jasons and start using NTUC and Sheng Siong.

a lot of the western goods are purchased in US$, so the local price is linked to the exchange rate, with the rate going the way it is, the prices have to go up - there was an article late last week in the local newspaper giving examples of this.

Last 6 months have been a killer - Increases everywhere (food and housing) except in wages and now look like freeze and/or salary reductions on the way.

ha, and some people mocked me when I bought 16 cans of baked beans, 2 boxes of honey nut cereal, over 1000 tea bags and a tin of biscuits in my shipping container.

Now who has the last laugh !!

louy wrote:ha, and some people mocked me when I bought 16 cans of baked beans, 2 boxes of honey nut cereal, over 1000 tea bags and a tin of biscuits in my shipping container.

Now who has the last laugh !!

its time to bring more then.

Louy,

I can understand the 1000 teabags but if you packed all of thse items in your container to save yourself $50 then that is really sad. Make me laugh again and tell me your an Aussie ?

louy wrote:ha, and some people mocked me when I bought 16 cans of baked beans, 2 boxes of honey nut cereal, over 1000 tea bags and a tin of biscuits in my shipping container.

that's not enuf to fill up a container! 16 cans of baked beans will go in a jiff!

I was given a shipping container as part of my relocation. After backing everything I own, the container was still half empty.

Hence I bought over a carton of food.

With regards to the 1000 plus tea-bags, I dont even drink tea.