The canteen is a place that all students know and love. Whether it is to eat, rest or chat with friends, it is a place often associated with happiness and enjoyment. However, less than a year ago, our canteen was renovated by the school, giving rise to an architectural reimagining of our canteen’s design, the streamlining of our hawker-centre style system into a single vendor and… a tidal wave of complaints about how it was less than satisfactory for students and staff alike.  

^{A brief introduction} 

The canteen previously had 6 different stalls, all serving different cuisines and catering to the specific tastes and preferences that students may have. With the school cutting down the number of stalls to just one, students went from having a smorgasbord of choices to only being able to patronize a single vendor. The reason provided for the change was that many of the vendors could not stay on. Logistically speaking, working with a single vendor would be a lot easier as opposed to dealing with multiple stall owners, so the change was understandable. However, this effectively created a monopoly within the school ecosystem, leading to a whole host of problems that, due to a lack of competition, the new vendors will not be obligated to resolve.  

^Backlash 

Students frequently feedbacked that their dining experience was better in the past. Between having more food options, cheaper pricing and better quality and taste overall, it seems that the previous iteration of our canteen had it a lot better. On top of that, having only one vendor meant that pricing could be dictated by just that vendor, and they were not compelled to improve food quality due to students not being able to dine anywhere else, assuming they did not leave the school; those who could often did, just to avoid eating from the aforementioned canteen vendor. They often touted cheaper prices and better tasting meals as their reason for doing so. 

Despite this, many students wanted to continue enjoying their lunch in school so, hoping to see improvements, they provided feedback in the form put up around the canteen. However, most of them commented that the changes that they have not seen any noticeable change for the better.  

^{The (café) vendor’s side} 

In response to the criticism about food quality, the vendor everyone has different tastes and preferences, so it’s impossible to cater to everyone and reach 100% satisfaction with the food. They have to standardize their preparation to ensure quality control. A perfectly understandable argument from their point of view, as catering to everybody who buys from them would just be impractical – but this brings up the question: if catering to different tastes is difficult now, why remove the vast choices we had before, which addressed exactly this issue? 

It seems that, so far, our canteen does not have the best track record, and there are not many who would say that they prefer the current canteen to its predecessor. Trusting that the people in charge are doing their best, all that we can hope for is that the vendors eventually take significant actions to remedy the problems that students are complaining about. If that does happen, we can finally look forward to a better canteen experience.