Although they might be pricey, buffets are among the most well-liked eateries in Singapore. A five-star hotel’s buffet restaurant will cost you at least 50 Singapore dollars, or $35.50, if you choose to eat there for lunch.
For instance, the Clove restaurant in the Swissotel Stamford, noted for its fusion of Western and foreign cuisines, costs SG$68 for a weekday lunch.
However, a gourmet buffet lunch doesn’t have to be an expensive luxury. Just ask Treatsure, a Singaporean business that offers clients reduced prices for buffet leftovers.
Treatsure, a “buffet-in-a-box” that debuted in September 2017, allows users to download the app, go to any of its dozen partner hotels, and carry away leftover buffet food for SG$10.50.
The idea for the app, according to co-founder Preston Wong, occurred to him when he saw his family throw away expired food from their refrigerator.
Wong said to Insider in an email, “We created the app to target food and beverage wastage.” He said, “I discovered that the issue of food loss was as difficult in the food business as it was in families.
According to internal docs that Wong provided to Insider, the app presently has 40,000 users.
When restaurants and hotels were shut down due to the pandemic, Treatsure experienced a similar financial and operational slowdown as the rest of the hospitality sector. Wong said that the company’s service for selling unsold goods helped to protect it throughout the epidemic.
On a workday afternoon, I headed to Clove at Swissotel Stamford because I was intrigued by the concept of a buffet in a box.
In Singapore, the Swissotel is situated in the middle of a bustling commercial area. Until I discovered that Clove’s entry was via the adjacent mall, I felt uncomfortable wandering through the cutting-edge, opulent hotel in search of buffet leftovers.
Since I didn’t need to make a reservation, I just went in at 2:30 p.m. The hotel sets aside a specified time of day for Treatsure users to attend the restaurant, often a 30-minute window.
The restaurant was mostly empty when I entered, with the exception of a few individuals packing leftovers into boxes with Treatsure labels.
You may cram as much food as you like into the takeout box for the price of SG$10.50. The cost is not all-inclusive; there is an extra SG$5 charge for meals from the carved or fresh food stations.
SG$10-12 was a realistic price range, according to Wong, and would only be somewhat more expensive than food court alternatives in the metropolis.
I was prepared to begin loading food into my takeaway box after paying at the register and scanning the app’s barcode. There were more than a dozen alternatives available.
Several cartons of leftover food were transported home by several persons.
One guy informed me that Treatsure’s low cost was one of the reasons he liked using it.
The unnamed guy stated, “It makes sense not to waste food, and the price is acceptable.” Although the service sometimes presses you to complete selecting your meal, the cheap cost is justified.
The food at Clove was mostly Asian. In contrast to what I had anticipated, several buffet trays were still stuffed to the gills with food, which caught me off guard.
According to the National Environment Agency, Singapore produced 817,000 tonnes of food waste in total in 2021. According to a research on food waste by the consulting company IDEO, at buffets, half of the food is thrown away.
Wong said that the hotels he works with want to limit the amount of food lost at buffets, and this goal is accomplished by giving away the leftovers.
“We approach sustainability-minded hospitality partners that see value in our goal and passionately support what we do,” Wong added, naming some of their partners as hotels like Grand Hyatt, Accor Group, Shangri-La Group, and Furama Group. Treatsure only works in Singapore at the moment.
The remaining meal seemed to be excellent. I brought a dozen meals, including claypot rice, fish curry, and dessert. The biryani rice was exceptionally well-liked, and other guests were also busily stuffing food into their boxes.
The fact that I didn’t get first dibs on the best food was a drawback of the experience; after all, people who paid full price for the hotel buffet had first dibs.
There are more apps than Treatsure that assist restaurants in using their surplus food. There is an app called Makan Rescue that alerts users to restaurants that provide leftovers for free. Recently, Insider’s Grace Dean used the Olio app, which links users to free meals and supplies. The Singaporean App Store lists the UK-based app, which is ranked 24th overall in the food category, as being accessible there as well.
Although it seemed tempting to pay on SG$5 for a piece of freshly cut meat, I discovered it wasn’t worth the extra money since there were already so many selections from the buffet spread itself.
While some customers chose the freshly sliced roasted chicken, others were eager to pack noodles and soup.
I decided to eat in a nearby food court because the restaurant isn’t open to those who utilise Treatsure to access the buffet.
Cakes may be pricey; in a mid-range bakery like Chateraise, they normally cost between SG$5 and S$10, so the dessert was one of the greatest aspects of the event.
The buffet spread had been out for some time before the Treatsure time slot came up, so one of the few drawbacks to the meal was that it wasn’t warm when I ate it.
Despite this, I can still see the app’s attraction, and as long as meal costs keep rising, I can see myself returning to it. After all, even if the dish is lukewarm, it is still of a five-star standard.