Home-Based Food Business Rules Should Catch Up With The Times

Mandatory basic food hygiene training for operators would be a good starting point

- Joyce Lim

In a stylishly renovated Housing Board flat in the north of Singapore, patrons are served $24 cocktails containing premium liquors such as Chinese moutai. The "mixologist" has a full-time job in the healthcare sector—the bar is his after-hours gig. There are no signs, no menu boards, and he technically also has no license.

Such home-based businesses have had restaurateurs up in arms recently, especially over private dining outfits operating on the scale of restaurants.

Food and beverage bosses say they are not begrudging home-based businesses' success. What they are questioning is the fairness of allowing large set-ups to operate without licenses or regulatory oversight, while actual restaurants and eateries contend with high overheads, manpower shortages and strict hygiene audits.

But it's clear that some loopholes in the current landscape need to be closed so that there are better all-round protections and basic fairness for everyone with skin in the game.

Home-based businesses took off during the Covid-19 pandemic as a way for workers to make extra cash, and today account for a fairly sizeable segment of Singapore's food industry.

An online search by The Straits Times found more than 150 listings of F&B businesses operating out of residential properties, from HDB flats to landed homes. The actual numbers are likely higher.

For homemakers, students and aspiring chefs, operating out of their homes offers a low-barrier way to test ideas, build confidence and earn income, particularly for those juggling caregiving duties.