SINGAPORE - Once a karung guni (rag and bone) man salvaging cardboard and old televisions to eke a living, Mr Daniel Yap now leads a group that rescues “ugly” food which feeds thousands of families yearly.
Come rain or shine, the 47-year-old and his team of volunteers from the Fridge Restock Community (FRC) will turn up at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre about twice a week to collect unsold fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste.
From 9am to noon, the team weaves through the bustling aisles of the wholesale centre, navigating rows of crates and cartons as they greet familiar faces.
Vendors wave them over, pointing to bins of fresh produce that would otherwise be discarded. Some sellers, well acquainted with the mission, even bring over boxes of their fruit and vegetables.
Mr Yap knows the vendors by name – a trust that has been built over years since he started rescuing food in 2018.
Today, his group rescues 8,000kg to 9,000kg of food per week. The food goes to 16 community fridges and 26 distribution points set up by community centres and residents’ networks around the island.
Mr Yap is a finalist for the Singaporean of the Year award, organised by The Straits Times. The award is given to a Singaporean or group of citizens who have made a significant contribution to society.
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This can be through achievements that put Singapore on the world stage, or by going beyond the call of duty to selflessly improve the lives of others in the community, among other ways.
The award, now in its 10th year, is presented by UBS Singapore.
Mr Yap, who owns a provision shop in Little India, founded the FRC in 2020 after realising there was food surplus that could be given to those in need.
What used to be a largely one-man show has grown into a community of 50 volunteers who take turns to help with the weekly rescue missions.
After finishing their rounds at about noon, the team allocates the produce to different locations across the island.
After being loaded with fruits and vegetables, the lorries will deliver the produce to various locations, where residents would line up to wait for their arrival.
At Serangoon Community Club on Oct 22, for instance, more than 100 people were waiting to pick up their groceries. Volunteers helped to sort out the food, cut away the rotten parts and ensured it was ready for collection by the beneficiaries.
“The relationships built with the fruit and vegetable sellers, as well as the residents’ committees we work with, took many years of developing trust, many rejections, for people to recognise the work that we do and believe in us,” said Mr Yap, who is divorced with three children.
When he was growing up in the 1990s with two brothers and a sister, food was hard-earned, said Mr Yap. His father owned a small construction company and his mother, a housewife, earned extra money by babysitting for neighbours and relatives.
“My parents always told us, ‘Don’t waste food’,” said Mr Yap. “Leftovers fed us for lunch, dinner and supper.” He added: “I would make sure nothing goes to the rubbish bin, all to the tummy.”
After he failed his Secondary 1 exams, he dropped out of school and went straight to work, scouring neighbourhoods for scrap to resell. From there, he moved to various jobs, working in hardware stores and convenience shops.
After national service, he tried his hand in the hardware business and eventually joined his father’s construction company. After three to four years, he ended up managing a vegetable stall at a dormitory in Tuas.
After the landlord did not renew his stall’s lease, he took on odd jobs at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre in 2004 and learnt skills like sourcing, negotiation and customer relations. It was also there that he got a taste of the food industry.
“I don’t ever remember taking a break from working since I was 15,” said Mr Yap. “I felt like a football being kicked around, with no control over where I go.”
“At that point, I really did not know what I was doing, and I still did not have any direction or purpose.”
Things changed in 2006 when he got the opportunity to open his own provision shop in Little India. A pivotal moment came in 2017 when he encountered two freegans rummaging through his shop’s dumpsters for discarded vegetables.
Initially sceptical, he later realised what they were doing and began setting aside fresh produce for them, and it soon became a habit.
However, he realised that he was setting aside more vegetables than there were takers, which prompted him to expand his efforts to distribute food on a larger scale.
In 2018, Mr Yap, and his mentor, Mr Daniel Tay, co-founder of Freegans Singapore, started a community group called SG Food Rescue, where they distributed food to low-income families in areas like Bukit Merah and Marsiling.
Operations stopped during the pandemic, but in 2020, Mr Yap took the chance to start Fridge Restock Community using the network he had built, focusing on stocking community fridges to combat food wastage and creating a culture of sharing among residents.
“I wanted to work with Resident Committees because I see it as a community-sharing programme,” said Mr Yap. “When residents themselves have a surplus of food, I want to build a culture of them giving and paying it forward, to pass on to the next person who might need it more.”
“Without him, FRC would collapse,” said volunteer Caroline Chia, 44, describing Mr Yap as a “hands-on person with a really big heart”.
Ms Chia, a photographer, said that rescuing food is physically demanding, and for a long time, Mr Yap had been handling the bulk of the work.
In 2020, she and her father started volunteering with Mr Yap.
“To me, the organisation is simply doing what makes sense – vendors have food they cannot sell and would throw out since they do not have the capability or the time to send it to the community,” said Ms Chia. “We are bridging that gap.”
Next on the group’s wish list is a cold-room facility to store produce, which will allow vendors to put the produce there on days when food rescue missions are not conducted, said Ms Chia.
Challenges like a lack of manpower and funding remain, said Mr Yap, although more corporate volunteers have come on board, which helps to sustain their operations and raise awareness of sustainability.
His dedication to food rescue will never stop, said Mr Yap. “It is a lot of time, effort and money. But it is worth it, and I am very happy to be part of the community.”
The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year (SOTY) is an award that is given to a Singaporean or group of citizens who have made a significant contribution to society. This can be through achievements that put Singapore on the world stage, or by going beyond the call of duty to selflessly improve the lives of others in the community, among other ways.
Organised by The Straits Times and presented by UBS Singapore, the annual award is now in its 10th year. The official airline partner is Singapore Airlines and the global hotel partner is Millennium Hotels and Resorts.
- Go to str.sg/soty24nominate
- Submit your nomination by Dec 31, 2024
- For more info on SOTY, go to https://www.straitstimes.com/soty24
- $20,000 cash
- One pair of Singapore Airlines business class tickets for each individual/group, up to three pairs of tickets for the winning group
- A five-night stay in any of Millennium Hotels and Resorts’ properties globally, up to a maximum of three sets of accommodation for the winning group
- $5,000 cash for each individual/group
- One pair of Singapore Airlines economy class tickets for each individual/group, up to a maximum of three pairs for each group of finalists
- A three-night stay in one of Millennium Hotels and Resorts’ properties globally, up to a maximum of three sets of accommodation for each finalist.