{"id":41388,"date":"2026-04-03T06:27:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=41388"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:27:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:27:34","slug":"half-of-healthy-bentos-may-be-going-to-waste-in-some-schools-is-there-room-for-compromise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=41388","title":{"rendered":"Half of healthy bentos may be going to waste in some schools. Is there room for compromise?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<h2>NO ROOM FOR CHICKEN NUGGETS?<\/h2>\n<p>Stallholders, meanwhile, have also had to make trade-offs. For some of them, the Healthy Meals in Schools Programme has come at a cost to their bottom line.<\/p>\n<p>Canteen vendor Koh Seng Leong, who sells Chinese mixed rice, starts his day with grocery shopping at NTUC FairPrice \u2014 at around 4am to 5am, when fresh vegetables hit the shelves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause it\u2019s good for the children. I don\u2019t want to get stale vegetables and cook (them for) \u2026 the students and make a huge profit,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re like my children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But his margins are tight. He brings in about S$1,800 a month but spends about S$2,000 on ingredients, plus S$80 on utilities and S$5 on rent at First Toa Payoh Primary School.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I\u2019m losing money,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a good month I make about S$100.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was not always this way. He has seen profits fall by about 35 per cent compared with 30 years ago, when items such as chicken nuggets and French fries were both popular and permitted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/cna-insider\/central-kitchen-meals-school-bentos-healthy-canteen-waste-caterers-6033301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NO ROOM FOR CHICKEN NUGGETS? Stallholders, meanwhile, have also had to make trade-offs. For some of them, the Healthy Meals in Schools Programme has come&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--3e8JxdZK--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/04\/02\/screenshot-2026-04-02-185401.png?itok=Na5Jdpo5","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19593,19594,10469,1096,1915,1461],"class_list":["post-41388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-bentos","tag-compromise","tag-healthy","tag-room","tag-schools","tag-waste","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}