Singapore studying safety of food donations past 'best by' date as MPs back food resilience motion
The Singapore Food Agency is studying the feasibility of allowing food past its quality-based date marks to be donated. Parliament passed a motion on Wednesday calling for enhanced food resilience and waste reduction through partnerships across society.
SINGAPORE — The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is studying how safe it is to allow food past its “best by” date to be donated, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Goh Hanyan said on Wednesday (9 Sep). This could help to reduce food waste by allowing more edible food to be redistributed rather than discarded.
Ms Goh was speaking in parliament during the debate on a motion tabled by the People’s Action Party’s Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for sustainability and the environment. The motion calls on the government to “enhance food resilience and support efforts to reduce food waste through partnerships with all of society”. Parliament passed the motion with no amendments after more than four hours of debate.
Quality-based date-marks like “best before” and “best used before” differ from safety-based date-marks like “expiry date”. Food manufacturers use a variety of date-marks on their packaging, and there are currently no international guidelines on how long food stays safe for consumption after the expiry date, said Ms Goh. “SFA is thus embarking on a study to assess the safety and feasibility of allowing food that has passed quality-based date-marks to be donated, while maintaining food safety standards,” she said. SFA has stepped up engagement with businesses this year to better understand date-marking practices, said the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE). The agency is finalising its review and more details will be announced in 2027.
Singapore generated 790,000 tonnes of food waste in 2025 — about 11 per cent of the total waste generated in the country. This works out to about 128kg of food waste per person, said MP Poh Li San, who introduced the private member’s motion. Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food from around the world, and people are becoming anxious about rising food costs, she said.
Ms Poh called for a “more coordinated food import policy and food redistribution ecosystem”, and for society to leverage the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act to redistribute more rescued food to benefit low-income families and seniors. She also proposed a nationwide community-dining ecosystem to provide fresh, hot meals made with rescued food to seniors and lower-income families, served at convenient locations in every neighbourhood.
MP Nadia Ahmad Samdin noted that land-use plans can change and be rezoned, but farming capability is much harder to recreate once it is gone. Citing plots in southern Lim Chu Kang, she said their tenures will expire by next year, though work for their future defence use may only start from 2030. She asked for a clearer framework for interim farm use. Regionally, she suggested exploring a small number of mutually beneficial agri-food pilots with Malaysia and Indonesia — for instance, in climate-resilient production or green lanes for efficient movement of time-sensitive food.
MP Fadli Fawzi suggested that the government give local farms longer leases of 30 years or 20+20 years, tied to clear production targets and periodic reviews. He also proposed strengthening Singapore’s position as a regional food transshipment and manufacturing hub. Responding to the GPC’s proposals, Ms Goh said MSE will take these suggestions into account in its ongoing review of Singapore’s Zero Waste Masterplan. For mixed food waste that cannot be valorised into useful products like animal feed, she added that recovering energy through co-digestion at the Food Waste Treatment Facility at Tuas Nexus is a more suitable option. The facility is expected to start operations in the second half of 2028 and will be able to treat about 18 per cent of Singapore’s annual food waste generated when fully operational.
