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MoNo Foods (MoNo) at Smith Street has decided to take a hiatus after opening a physical space at Chinatown months ago.

The food waste social enterprise aims to reduce food waste by selling surplus food at low prices and educating people about best-before dates.

What's unique about MoNo is that they allow people to pay any amount they wish for the food items that they take from the shop.

Last day of operation at Smith Street

When Mothership visited MoNo at Smith Street near lunchtime on Feb. 3, many visitors, both young and old, were observed browsing the wide selection of items.

Upon entering the space, one is greeted by a massive stack of oat milk cartons, boxes of Vietnamese fish sauce and a table of free goodies that were donated.

The shelves are stocked with items such as instant noodles, snacks like potato chips and even niche brands of biscuits catered for pregnant women.

The table of free treats has items ranging from canned food to potato chips and oat milk.

Quite a few visitors were quick to nab the free oat milk packets.

How MoNo works

As they sell food past their best before dates, the shop does not stock perishables, save for some goat's yoghurt and butter which were fast running out by the time Mothership paid a visit.

Here's a notice in the shop educating consumers about different terms used to indicate the freshness of food items such as "Best before", "Use by" and "Sell by".

It also prompts visitors to determine whether the food is still edible by looking, smelling and/or tasting it, not just relying on the labels.

Pricing and payment system

The pricing system at MoNo's shop is simple: for items that have not passed their best-before dates, MoNo will indicate prices after hefty discounts of 50 to 80 per cent. The enterprise also takes in customers' feedback in adjusting the prices for these items.

For items past their best before, consumers are welcome to pay any amount they wish.

Customers may choose to pay by cash or through PayNow.

The founders, Lorraine Koh and Leonard Shee, explained that they adopted such a pricing and payment system so as to keep things affordable for the elderly people, who frequent the shop due to its proximity to temples nearby, and for those who are in need of the supplies in the pantry.

Those who wish to contribute to the cause can donate freely as well.

Towards their last few days of operation at Smith Street, MoNo allows customers to pay as they wish for all items in store.

Humble beginnings

MoNo started around a year and a month ago, and only had a physical shop four months ago.

According to Koh, they started off selling items from volunteers' homes, at locations ranging from Bukit Panjang to Jurong.

Before occupying the space at Smith Street, the enterprise gained traction and support through word of mouth, roadshows and pop-up events at Community Clubs.

Their customer stream comprised mostly females and elderly people. With new products like oat milk made available, they saw more young, male visitors at the shop recently.

In the past few days, they have had more visitors streaming in, after getting to know about their initiatives. They either want to donate money or clear items from their warehouse.

MoNo partners different suppliers and companies to secure their surplus stock for selling.

In the beginning, they actively reached out to suppliers but faced many rejections as they were strangers to these suppliers.

However, some eventually recognised the value in partnering MoNo.

According to Koh, the suppliers that decided to work with them are aware that their products are still suitable for consumption and want to avoid seeing their products being discarded in landfills, as that will be wasting the energy and resources that went into producing these food items.

By partnering Mono, food waste is diverted and the suppliers can gain more publicity for their products and possibly earn new customers.

Shee commented:

We are lucky that we have some of [the suppliers] who like what we do, and they continue to support us without any question.

Motivation

The founders hope to reduce the amount of food waste in Singapore through educating consumers that food items can still be safe for consumption after their best-before dates.

They believe that food which is not spoiled is still safe to eat, and that consumers should not be "too quick to throw [the food] away".

However, it's not their intent to impose this idea on others.

On a physical hiatus

For those who aren't aware of MoNo prior to reading this article, we have a piece of sad news to share.

Feb. 3 is the last day that they will be redistributing food at their Chinatown space.

According to their Instagram post, MoNo will be on hiatus from Feb. 3, 6pm.

They have to move out of the space at Smith Street due to "building renovation and maintenance and other reasons".

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MoNo (@mono.foods)

Memorable encounters

As compared to other start-ups, MoNo only existed for a short while but there were surely some memorable encounters and experiences that the founders kindly shared with us, despite being busy on the last day.

Koh said:

These past few days, we really saw quite a lot of support. Some of them are just passers-by who have not hear about us and just want to support our cause with the items. We saw a lot of people that really wanted to help during the last few days. So it's quite touching in a way.

Shee remembered an elderly man who surprised him with a huge donation.

He came and took a lot of things.

[..]

He needed us to help to bring the things out. But just before he [left], he passed us quite a [large] sum [of money]. He said he wants to contribute. We didn't expect it.

Even though there are "others at the end of the spectrum" who do not pay for the items, they had been "pleasantly surprised by the generosity of people" thus far.

The duo added that they are privileged to meet people from "different walks of life".

What's next?

According to Koh, they have "no steady plans" yet for MoNo, as they keep a look out for a location downtown that is convenient for their customers and has affordable rent.

They are also appealing for help to cover some costs while they divert pallets of items to community clubs, temples, churches and food rescue groups.

Shee told Mothership that they currently tap on grants from National Environment agency (NEA) and National Youth Council (NYC), but they are in the midst of applying for more financial support.

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Top image by Zoe Ern Yap and via Mono.food/Instagram