SINGAPORE — It is obvious how we have been looking to make hawker food less sinful. A little less oil, a little less lard and more vegetables add up in the long run.

But some hawkers have found reason to offer more. Six years ago, The Salad Corner, a salad bar concept, decided to open its first outlet at Amoy Food Centre with a plan to sell affordable salads to consumers within the Central Business District.

“During that time, salads were sold mostly in deli and speciality shops,” said owner Jess Ong, who used to be a financial accounts manager. “My office used to be at the Amoy Street area but there wasn’t any salad place selling salad at affordable prices,” said the certified accountant. “The cheapest was around S$7.50 during that time. I wanted to offer salad at a price that most people can afford and are willing to pay for a meal.”

She added that most customers then felt that a salad meal at S$4.90 was expensive “compared to mix vegetable rice or a bowl of noodles”. Even now, though, consumers can walk away with a relatively satisfying meal from as low as S$4.90 at its Amoy Food Centre and Tanjong Pagar outlets, and S$5.90 at its outlets at Westgate Mall and Market Street. The latter two, she explained, are under Capital Mall and have higher rental and overhead costs. The former two have lower rentals and are not air-conditioned. Prices, though, have not increased.

The basic salad includes a selection of five basic toppings that range from broccoli to beetroot to boiled potatoes, mixed mushrooms, pea sprouts, cranberry, egg and walnuts; and one dressing. Additional toppings of tuna, broiled chicken and smoked salmon range between S$1 and S$2.

Ong felt that these days, consumers are willing to pay S$5 to S$6 for a salad meal at a hawker centre, a slight premium to what they would normally fork out for a plate of chicken rice. “There are now more and more people who are trying to keep up with a healthier lifestyle and are more willing to spend on healthier meals,” she said of the changing perceptions over the past six years, adding how there were mixed reactions when she first started hawking salads back in 2010. “Some were surprised and happy to find ‘cheap and affordable’ salads available in the hawker centre as there was no other hawker stall in Singapore selling salads back then,” she added.

“Some customers had never tried a healthy salad meal, (and) it became a new eating experience for them.”

It was a welcomed option that grew popular quickly among consumers working in the area. In fact, that same year, Green Bites, a similar concept, opened its first stall at Golden Shoe Hawker Centre. Its salads start at S$5 for a selection of six basic ingredients with one dressing. Premium toppings start at 50 cents for baby spinach, or S$1 for chicken or tuna. For S$2, customers can choose between the smoked duck or “cheesy chicken sausage”.

The idea, said manager Sean Lee, was to introduce such foods at affordable prices, explaining that there remains a strong perception that a healthy salad meal is pricey. However, his customers do not mind spending S$5 to S$7 on his salads, which include familiar concoctions such as the honey-mustard vinaigrette and a basil and garlic dressing, as well as Asian-inspired options, featuring sweet Thai chilli and a wasabi and soy combination, to name a few.

For Lee, customer loyalty is valued over higher profit margins, and he has seen a 30 per cent increase in the number of customers since it opened. Green Bites now has outlets at hawker centres at Hong Lim Complex and Bukit Merah Central, as well as shops at Tampines Grande and Hyflux Innovation Centre on Bendemeer Road.

The Salad Corner has recorded a similar increase in the number of customers — as high as 40 per cent since it started, said Ong. And even though the idea of exploring comparable opportunities in hawker centres in the heartlands sounds promising, Ong has no plans of expanding in that area, citing rule changes by the National Environment Agency as the main hindrance. “Stall owners have to be at the stalls every day to mend them, hence it is very difficult to open up more stalls in hawker centres.”