Supermarket chain, NTUC Fairprice, has introduced a slew of initiatives totalling $15 million, to help Singaporeans ride through the recession.
For consumers, the five percent discount on 500 housebrand items will be extended till the end of December this year so that they will continue to enjoy affordable daily essentials.
In addition, NTUC Fairprice has introduced a new range of "Yellow Dot" basic items that are up to 25 percent cheaper than comparable top national brands.
These items are the lowest priced in their respective product categories.
Director of Integrated Purchasing of NTUC Fairprice Co-operative, Tng Ah Yiam gave the assurance that though these products are priced low, they meet food safety requirements.
"First thing first, actually we look at the factory facility to make sure that they have the proper certification to meet the food safety criteria. Second thing is that we also taste the product, we did the tasting to compare the product versus the national brand to ensure that that product itself, the taste, quality itself meets the local consumer requirements.”
For the first time, NTUC Fairprice is setting aside up to two million dollars this year to help SME suppliers manage their cashflows.
Chairman of NTUC Fairprice, Mr Ng Ser Miang elaborates.
"For our suppliers, especially those small and medium enterprise, we will support them to improve their cashflow by giving them earlier payments for example from 60 days to 30 days and we believe this will benefit about 100 SMEs and will cost about two million (dollars) to Fairprise in terms of opportunity costs or in terms of interest and to the Union, we will increase our support to the Labour Movement by more than 50 percent of contribution from 4 over million to 6 over million."
Mr Ng adds that NTUC Fairprice has no retrenchment plans but will instead spend about half a million dollars this year to train 5,000 frontline customer service staff.
There will also be three new NTUC Fairprice supermarkets opening across the island this year.
To help the needy and underpriviledged, the Fairprice Foundation will contribute at least 20 percent more this year compared to the 6.7 million donated in 2008.
--938Live
then should sell more cheaper, that will directly help more people
No NTUC in my area -.-