This is a fried oyster omelette or orh luak, A classic singapore dish.
It was cooked by hawker Ms Fang Lin Xia during a
special shoot recreating the dish for The Straits Times.
Just a year after opening a stall with her husband, at Bukit Timah Market & Food
Centre, the 40-year-old she’s had to raise the price of this hawker staple.
Ms Fang is one of many hawkers in Singapore who are charging more
in order to cope with rising costs – one of the effects felt from the
Russia-Ukraine war, some 8,600 kilometres away.
Here’s how a faraway war affects an oyster omelette.
Ms Fang’s oyster omelette is currently priced at $6.
That’s a 20% increase from the $5 she charged for the dish only a year ago.
Let’s take a closer look at how much the ingredients cost.
Over the course of a day, a lot of cooking oil is
required to fry all the orders of oyster omelette to crisp perfection.
And the cost of cooking oil has gone up. But it’s not the biggest cost.
The price of oysters has also gone up,
and Ms Fang uses five per full size omelette. But again. It’s not the biggest rise.
Thankfully, the wholesale price of green onions has remained largely stable.
It also helps that not all customers want this in their dish.
The ingredient that is really driving up the price of oyster omelette
and other dishes is of course… eggs.
Singaporeans love eggs - so much in fact that more than
two billion of them were consumed here in 2021.
About 30% of Singapore’s eggs are produced locally,
and more than half of the supply comes from Malaysia.
The rest are imported from 10 other countries including Poland,
Australia, Thailand, Spain and Ukraine.
Since last year, prices of eggs have been going up,
driven by the rising cost of imported chicken feed.
Wheat and corn are the key ingredients for chicken feed.
And the 2 biggest exporters of wheat and corn? Russia and Ukraine.
Since the war began in February, the cost of chicken feed has shot up.
Before the war started on February 24th, Ukraine exported up to six
million tonnes of grain and oilseed a month.
In March, this number fell to 200,000 tonnes, just over 3% of its original output.
The War has seen many farms in Ukraine destroyed.
Shipping vessels carrying tonnes
of grain exports from Ukraine and Russia were blocked from leaving the Black Sea ports.
As of April 15, about 76 ships from 18 countries were blocked in seven Ukrainian ports.
Around 1.25 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds
were reportedly stranded on commercial vessels blocked in Ukrainian seaports.
The war has led to a further disruption to the global supply chain crisis.
Prices of wheat and corn were driven up further.
“Chicken feed price has gone up by almost 60 per cent and feed cost makes
up the bulk of the egg production costs. With a low profit margin,
we have to raise our price,” said Mr Jacky Lim who works in a poultry farm in Malaysia.
Vessels carrying around 1.25 million tonnes of Russian and Ukrainian grain and oilseed
were blocked from leaving the Black Sea ports,
causing a major disruption to the global supply chain,
and driving up prices of wheat, corn, and yes - chicken feed.
The sharp rise in production costs has led poultry farmers to raise their prices as well,
and import price of eggs have increased to its highest since 2019. hit a high
in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Since Ms Fang and her husband started their food stall last February, the couple have
been fighting the rising costs of ingredients. It was in March, when a tray of 30 eggs went
up to $7.50 that they took the decision to raise the price of their oyster omelette from $5 to $6.
When the price of a tray of 30 eggs went up to $7.50 in March which was almost 40
per cent more than what we paid last year, we had no choice but to increase the price
of our fried oyster omelette as the dish uses a number of eggs,” said Ms Fang.
A year ago, Ms Fang would pay $5.50 for a tray of 30 eggs imported from Malaysia.
Now, $5.50 only gets her 22 eggs.
In April , the Monetary Authority of Singapore - warned that consumer prices
could increase further as businesses pass on rising costs to consumers.
MAS said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will have significant repercussions on global
prices of food, which had already risen close to record levels before the war.
“As Ukraine and Russia are both major global exporters of grains and edible oils,
the conflict has led to steep price increases in these commodities.”
Some food for thought for the next time you order this hawker classic.