10 Ways To Improve The School Canteen

//10 Ways To Improve The School Canteen//

I ponned the second half of entrepreneurship day. Expected CS. But nope, Mr Pang decided to get creative this time. The punishment is to write a 500 word essay, and the title is "10 ways to improve the school canteen". Since I wrote it, I might as well post it here:

I used to love to come to the college side canteen to eat when I was studying in Chinese High because the variety of food offered by the college canteen is so much more diverse than that of the high school canteen. However, with the closure of a lot of stalls and the addition of a lot of new stalls recently, the standard of the canteen dropped significantly. Because of that, a lot of students decided to seek alternatives for the below average food in College canteen (such as High School canteen, café at SIM, Coronation, etc) Hence, I proposed these 10 ways to improve the school canteen.

#1: Decrease the rent for stall holders
One of the many reasons why students do not like to eat in the College canteen is the high price. Yes, compared to foodcourt food, it is definitely much cheaper, but compared to a lot of other schools, or even the high school canteen, it is considered quite expensive. Take “Asian Delight” for example, the price is pretty unreasonable for the shockingly small portions. The “Cai Fan” stall also charges the students higher than the high school canteen “Cai Fan” stalls do.

Hence in view of this, I strongly believe that the stalls should lower prices. It would be a win-win situation for both the students and for the stall vendors. Students can enjoy the food at a lower price, and the stall vendors can enjoy better business.

To achieve that, the school will have to lower the rent. By lowering rent, the cost of production would decrease, and this decrease in cost of production would cause the supply to increase (supply curve shifts right). Increase in supply will cause the market price to drop, and at the same time causes the quantity demanded to increase. As canteen food are very price elastic (due to the large number of substitutes), the quantity demanded will increase more than proportionately than the decrease in price, hence total revenue would increase for the stall vendors.

#2: Bring back the favourites
As I mentioned, the college canteen used to be so much of a higher standard. Hence, to improve the canteen, the easiest way would be to bring back the favourite stalls of many students and staff. The orange plate stall that sells fried carrot cake (now the Japanese Food stall) comes to mind immediately. It serves delicious yet cheap food ($1.20 per plate if my memory does not fail me). The noodle stall that sold fantastic laksa ought to be brought back too. Even the Muslim stall is better than a lot of new stalls now. The Ramily burger was one of the best finger food sold in the Hwa Chong canteen.

#3: Increase variety
If the plan to bring back previous stalls fails, then it is about time to ask the current stalls to improve. Take the Japanese food stalls for example, they only sell a few types of Japanese food, compared to RJC Japanese food stall that sells at least twice as much type of Japanese food. Hence, they should try to increase the variety of food they sell.

#4: Sell what you say you would
I also strongly believe that they should sell what they state they would. Look at the “Asian Delight” stall, exactly what “Asian” delights are they selling? Instead, what I see is western food. Look at the Western food stall now, yes they do sell Western food, but why are they selling Nasi Lemak too? Yes, I did mention that they should increase the variety of food, but when I said that I meant to increase the variety of food within the limit of what you are selling (like Jap food, western food, etc).

#5: Presentation is important
Sometimes, it is not just about the food, it is also about how you present your food. Styrofoam bowls and plates hardly do any favours to make your food more desirable. I would really appreciate it if we were served with proper plates and bowls, etc.

#6: Eliminate stalls that really cannot make it
R&B Food Hut – you do not call a bowl of noodle soup with chilli oil laksa. I wonder how this stall got the permit to sell in the canteen in the first place. I suggest that more stringent selection to take place so that such unfortunate incidents like R&B Food Hut somehow getting the permit to sell in the canteen to happen again.

#7: Improve the canteen atmosphere
Like I mentioned, it is not always about the food. The dining environment is very important too. How are we supposed to enjoy our meals when it is always so warm, there are always birds flying around, and you always can’t find a place to sit during peak hours? Hence, I propose that more fans to be installed in the canteen. Air conditioning would be better, however I understand that it would increase the overall costs, which would in turn transferred to the stall vendor through higher rent, and to us through higher price, hence more fans will do. It would be very advisable to increase the size of the canteen. The school population is increasing, and I can see this trend to continue for the next few years, hence a bigger canteen is definitely necessary.

#8: Shame the worst stalls
A vote should be carried out monthly via EMB (or any other means) to determine the worst stall of the month. If Stall A is the worst stall for January, it will NOT be eligible for the votes in February. The worst stall of the month will be labeled. This can prevent unsuspecting victims from buying from that stall (I feel so bad for the high school boys who bought from the R&B Food Hut the other day). It can also prevent patrons of that stall to buy from it. Hence, with so few costumers for that month, the stall will be spurred to increase the quality of the food and service. They may think of promotions to attract costumers too.

#9: Increase the efficiency
One of the problems of the current canteen is the lack of efficiency in many stalls. They are quite slow in serving the food and so on, and this causes long queues to occur, causing the already small canteen to be even more crowded. Hence, a time limit should be imposed to each stalls for serving the food, if they exceed the time limit, a 50% discount would have to be given.

#10: Transfer of resource
If all else fails, I highly recommend the school to shut down the canteen and use the maintenance fee of the canteen to charter buses for free to various eating places around the school, like the High School Canteen, SIM, Beauty World, Bukit Timah Plaza, Bukit Timah food centre, Adam Road food centre, etc.