Making Every Good Count

As a social enterprise, we are driven by our social mission to Do Good for the community. The framework of our community programmes is structured to provide assistance to the less fortunate and more importantly, to empower the beneficiaries in the longer term.

NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd was founded by the labour movement in 1973, with a social mission to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore. Guided by the philosophy to do well in order to do good for the community, FairPrice continues to evolve to remain relevant to changing consumer lifestyles while staying focused on its social goals and making life better for the community.

NTUC FairPrice launched FairPrice Foundation in 2008 to focus its giving efforts to provide a better life for the community.

For more information, please visit: https://www.fairpricegroup.com.sg/fairprice-foundation/

FairPrice Foundation is funded exclusively by NTUC FairPrice. Over the last ten years, FairPrice has disbursed over S$100 million to the community through FairPrice Foundation.

The Foundation’s grant-making philosophy revolves around its mission to contribute “A Better Life for the Community” and is focused on the three following areas:

  • Poor and Needy
  • Nation Building and Community Bonding
  • Workers’ Welfare

In selected initiatives, such as the FairPrice Share-A-Textbook project, we invite public volunteers to join us in the project so that the project acts as a catalyst to nurture the sense of community spirit and they too, can play a part for the community and the environment. Follow our social media channels to find out more.

Social enterprises focus on fulfilling social objectives, which can be funded by its commercial activities or through donations (non-profit). For FairPrice, our mandate is to be self-sustaining commercially so that we may continue to fulfill our social commitments. We do not receive any form of funding from the public or private sector.

FairPrice is guided by our philosophy to Do Well in order to Do Good for the community. Our customers can be assured that for every dollar spent at FairPrice, part of it will go towards helping someone in the community live a better life.

In FY2020, profits from operations translates to less than 1% of our revenue over the same period.

Financial details can be found at: https://www.fairpricegroup.com.sg/media-and-reports/reports/

Comparing a basket of daily essential products, FairPrice consistently offers the best value – making them easily available and accessible in our efforts to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore.

When comparing prices, shoppers should consider factors such as consistent availability, the product’s country of origin, expiry dates as well as food safety standards that the retailer practices. It is a common promotion strategy for some retailers to offer certain products as “loss-leaders” to attract customers.

Some of the initiatives we adopt to ensure savings for customers include:

Price taker As a retailer, we are a price taker and the products we offer are from authorised distributors. Nonetheless, we work with our suppliers to ensure any adjustments in prices are reasonable and justifiable. Consumers should be wary of products, especially consumables that are not sourced from authorised suppliers as they might not have any avenue for recourse should there be issues with the product.

Diversified sources To ensure daily essentials remain affordable and available, we diversify our sources to ensure consumers have the choice and flexibility to make an informed decision.

For example, we source fresh and frozen chicken from Malaysia, Brazil, Thailand, Denmark and the United States to ensure we are not overly reliant on any one source.

Housebrands As part of our efforts to keep daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore, we developed an extensive range of housebrand products including chilled & frozen products, groceries like rice, oil, canned food and condiments, dairy products, and non-food items, that are priced about 10 to 20 per cent cheaper than comparable products in the market. These products are made by reputable manufacturers and are subject to extensive quality and safety audits.

For instance, our popular FairPrice Jasmine Fragrant Rice (5kg) and FairPrice Brown Rice (5kg) have maintained their prices of S$8.20* and S$11.20* respectively for the past 4 years. Our FairPrice Brown Rice (5kg) is also priced about 40 per cent lower than comparable national brands.

Times of crisis In times of crisis or economic downturn, we strive to also be the last to increase prices and first to drop prices. We also benchmark prices to ensure essentials remain affordable.

For example, when we faced severe air pollution due to the haze in 2013, it was reported that several unscrupulous merchants were profiteering by charging consumers exorbitant prices for N95 face masks. We did not sell face masks prior but tapped on our network of suppliers to promptly provide masks to consumers at fair prices, setting the benchmark for the market. Prices for N95 masks soon came down to reasonable levels.

In the recent pandemic, when Antigen Rapid Test (ART) self-test kits were made available, we priced them at extremely competitive rates. This set the benchmark and industry players soon began to price the kits they sold on par or lower than us.

Special discounts To complement these efforts we also introduced special discounts for seniors like the Seniors Discount (2002), Pioneer Generation Discount (2014) and the Merdeka Generation Discount (2019). Industry players soon followed suit and offered discount schemes that were on par or more. Regardless, our efforts proved to have spurred the market as a whole to provide greater savings to seniors.

In 2021, we also introduced the CHAS Blue Discount to provide greater savings for the less fortunate.

*Data as of August 2021

FairPrice has been operating in the HDB heartlands for over four decades and has co-existed with local businesses and residents in the community since their establishment. Our presence also often helps drive traffic to the heartland centres as well which also benefits other small businesses that each have their own role to play in the community.

FairPrice remains committed to keeping daily essentials within reach for all in Singapore and providing a better life to the community. Being situated in the heartlands, we are able to better serve the community and enhance the accessibility to basic essential grocery items for our shoppers.

FairPrice Finest was created to suit the changing lifestyle needs of consumers, where an increasing segment of the population are more well travelled and enjoy greater affluence. Catering to evolving consumer needs ensures we remain relevant as a commercial entity as by doing well, we are able to continue doing good for the community.

Despite offering a more cosmopolitan range of products, we still practise uniform pricing. So similar products across our formats will be uniformly priced regardless of where they are located, barring store specific promotion.

For example, the same bag of rice will have the same price at our Finest store in Jewel and at the FairPrice supermarket in Bedok. The only difference is that our Finest stores will offer a wider variety of rice from more exclusive or premium brands, which can sometimes give the inaccurate impression that products are more expensive.

FairPrice Finest was created to suit the changing lifestyle needs of consumers, where an increasing segment of the population were more well travelled and enjoyed greater affluence over the years. This is to ensure we remain relevant as Singapore’s leading supermarket. By doing well, we are able to continue doing good for the community.

Despite offering a more cosmopolitan range of products, we still practise uniform pricing. So similar products across our formats will be uniformly priced regardless of where they are located, barring store specific promotions.

For example, the same bag of rice will have the same price at our Finest store in Jewel and at the FairPrice supermarket in Bedok. The only difference is that our Finest stores will offer a wider variety of rice from more exclusive or premium brands, which can sometimes give the inaccurate impression that products are more expensive.

Co-operatives such as NTUC FairPrice, are mandated under the Co-operative Societies Act to contribute to the Central Co-operative Fund (CCF) and Singapore Labour Foundation (SLF) in place of a corporate tax.

The Co-operative Societies Act requires co-operatives to contribute 5% of their first S$500,000 in annual operating surplus to the CCF, and 20% of any operating surplus in excess of S$500,000 to either the CCF or the SLF.

The co-operative’s contributions to the CCF and the SLF will be channeled towards the general development of the co-operative movement in Singapore.

Our contribution to the CCF and SLF can be found at: https://www.fairpricegroup.com.sg/media-and-reports/reports/

About FairPrice Group Share-A-Textbook

FairPrice Group Share-A-Textbook (formerly known as FairPrice Used Textbooks Project) is FairPrice Group’s signature community project that is held annually.

NTUC FairPrice first started the Used Textbooks Project in 1983. Pre-loved textbooks were collected and distributed for free to needy students. The project was rebranded as FairPrice Share-A-Textbook in 2010.

  • Relieve the financial burden of families by providing free pre-loved textbooks;
  • Encourage the value of thrift; and
  • Promote a greener Singapore through recycling of pre-loved textbooks.

Over the past 40 years, more than 6.8 million textbooks were collected to help over 280,000 students save on textbooks expenses.

The project received the PRISM (Public Relations in Service to Mankind) award from the Institute of Public Relations in Singapore for its significant contribution to mankind. It also received a Green Leaf Merit Award from the then Ministry for the Environment for its promotion of environmental friendliness through reusing and recycling waste. In September 2006, the FairPrice Used Textbooks Project was hailed as a Best Practice from Singapore for promoting environmental friendliness and human rights by the UN Global Compact, a United Nations organisation which champions corporate social responsibility.

FairPrice Group Share-A-Textbook 2023 – Project Details

The project consists of: (a) Donation period and (b) Distribution days.

This year, members of the public may donate their pre-loved textbooks for the project at:

  • All FairPrice stores island-wide, including Warehouse Club, FairPrice Xtra hypermarkets, FairPrice Finest stores, FairPrice supermarkets, and FairPrice Xpress stores at Esso service stations.

The donation period is from 30th October to 30th November 2023. All books collected will be sent for sorting before distribution.

We welcome all textbooks that are in the current syllabus and in usable condition (i.e. no torn / missing pages and no scribbling).

You may visit https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-in-sg/approved-textbook-list for the list of books in the current syllabus.

Yes, we do. They will be sorted under the ‘Reference / Others’ category for collection.

Members of the public are welcome to pick up pre-loved textbooks from 9th to 10th December 2023 at =DREAMS, 99 Haig Rd, Singapore 438748. However, please pre-book your preferred date and time-slot before the distribution.

*Students under the Priority Collection Scheme may also choose to pick up their textbooks on 9th or 10th December 2023.

To continue safeguarding your well-being, pre-booking of a collection time-slot is mandatory. There are ten hourly time-slots per day for selection and each booking limits a total of two pax into the Arena for collection of textbooks. This is to allow our volunteers time to sanitise the collection zones and minimise crowding at the venue.

You may pre-book your preferred date and time-slot via this link: TBC. The booking platform will be open from 27 November 2023. Please email us at [email protected] should you require assistance in booking the time-slot.

Please be advised to bring along your own bags as they will not be provided on the distribution day. Also, due to safety measures in place, a maximum of two pax per booking may enter the collection zone during your selected time-slot to collect your textbooks.

Remaining textbooks will be sent for recycling.

Volunteer with us!

Volunteers will support this project from 21st November over two phases.

Phase

Scope of work

Sorting
  1. Sort through donated books and categorise them into various academic levels and subjects
  2. Filtering of books to ensure that donated books are in line with current syllabus and in good condition
  3. Ensure that recipients are able to obtain relevant titles to meet their needs more accurately
  4. Wagons layout, queue management, stocking of wagons with books
Distribution 
  1. Queue management, replenishment of books, sanitising collection zones and assisting recipients with book search

Volunteer slots will be open for registration on 6th November. Do check back here for any updates.

We are recruiting volunteers for the following phases of the project:

Phase Dates Venue Time
Sorting  21st Nov – 7th Dec =DREAMS

99 Haig Rd, Singapore 438748

AM: 9am – 12pm

PM: 2pm – 5pm

Distribution  8th – 10th Dec AM: 9am – 2pm

PM: 1.30pm – 6pm

Other Enquires

Feedback and enquiries on FairPrice Group Share-A-Textbook 2023 can be directed to our email at [email protected].

  • From 3th October 2022: AMK Hub, 53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, Singapore 569933
  • From 17th October 2022: NEX, 23 Serangoon Central Singapore 556083
  • From 31st October 2022: FairPrice Hub, 1 Joo Koon Circle, Singapore 629117

BINgo will be deployed at the stated locations till October 2023.

BINgo is a smart waste sorting bin that employs artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors, to help encourage correct recycling practices and improve recycling rates. It also encompasses interactive and educational elements to help shoppers identify recyclables from non-recyclables, enabling them to recycle more and recycle correctly.

The development of BINgo was a joint effort between FairPrice Group and A*STAR. It was funded by FairPrice’s Sustainability Fund, and the technology was provided by A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech).

For FairPrice Group, please email us at [email protected]. You can also read more about FairPrice Group’s sustainability efforts here.

For SIMTech, please email us at [email protected]. You can also read more about A*STAR’s work in sustainability here.

Currently, about 40% of what goes into recycling bins cannot be recycled due to contamination.

Contamination arises when unsuitable waste are thrown into the recycling bin, such as food and liquids as well as items that cannot be recycled. When this happens, the rest of the recyclables may be contaminated and eventually be unsuitable for recycling. They will then be disposed of, incinerated, and landfilled.

You should ensure that the waste materials are recyclables, which include metal cans, glass, paper and plastic packaging. You should also check that the recyclable materials are not contaminated with food or liquids (e.g. a half-empty bubble tea cup with remnant liquid and pearls).

At FairPrice Group, we believe in building

a sustainable world together

Check out how we’re working with our next generation through Food Innovation Technology (FIT) as we make lives better for all.

Learn More Learn More

Back To Top