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Local Hawker Favourites At Glitzy Corporate Banquets? Meet the Singaporean Food Caterers Making It Happen

This story was put together by the AI tools of Alpha Story.

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Image: Livingmenu's food catering featuring local favourites

It is commonplace for large-scale events and glitzy corporate banquets to source their food from some of the most highly-rated restaurants in Singapore. But isn’t it strange that hawker food never even makes the cut for consideration — although it also wins Michelin stars and keeps people queuing for hours on end? 👀

Well, Livingmenu’s Raphael Kan thinks it’s high time they fix this injustice.

Livingmenu is Singapore’s first and only multi-vendor catering solution. This means that they personally curate a 100% customisable event menu, mixing and matching selections not only from renowned professional restaurants, but also top hawker stalls across the island!

(Yes, this does mean that you can have Tian Tian’s Hainanese chicken rice alongside freshly baked lobster or the best beef rendang in town.)

Having started Livingmenu as a hawker food delivery service when the pandemic was at its worst, Raphael learnt first-hand from vendors just how hard it was to make ends meet, especially as most hawkers had little to no avenues for breaking into new markets. As Singapore began to bounce back and large events returned to social calendars, Raphael made the big decision to pivot the business as a tech-enabled catering solution provider — this time, with a focus on taking hawker food to the big stage.

Not only does Livingmenu give small-scale vendors equal access to larger corporate orders that would otherwise never come their way, they also serve as a platform for equal footing. Local hawkers can supplement larger menus and focus on bringing just their A-game signature dishes (hence alleviating capacity concerns), their wares standing proud and tall next to that of professional chefs and restaurateurs.

An ode to the joyful simplicity of hawker fare, Raphael has also remodelled the traditional food ordering process to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

Forget waiting impatiently on a phone call or browsing pages upon pages of food options! Livingmenu’s client enquiry form turns key information like preferred cuisines, dietary restrictions, and budget into an AI-generated, best-matched menu. Clients can also add or remove any dishes to customize the menu further.

Livingmenu’s unique ethos of bringing hawker food to large-scale events has served more than 50,000 customers — including the Parliament of Singapore! And though Raphael now counts corporate giants like Boston Consulting Group, UBS, and Citibank among his regulars, he and Livingmenu continue to stick by their true passion: improving the sustainability of Singapore’s beloved local food culture.

On that note, we would like to invite you to speak with Raphael Kan, Founder of Livingmenu, on how he is shaking up the catering space in Singapore:

  • The disparity between how restaurants and hawker stalls are viewed, despite some having achieved the same level of recognition and success
  • Why he decided to join a saturated catering industry that is already teeming with established, long-time vendors
  • Pivoting from a pandemic business baby to a full-fledged foodtech company
  • A day in the life of Livingmenu, with the ins-and-outs of how they coordinate clients, event teams, hawkers, and chefs/restaurateurs


About Living Menu

Pivoting from a hawker delivery service in April 2023, Livingmenu is Singapore’s first and only tech-enabled, multi-vendor food catering solution that curates menus for large-scale events from both hawker fare and restaurant-quality dishes.

The platform’s network of food partners and its internally developed tech applications enable it to provide 100% customisable menus, and has served over 50,000 satisfied customers. Livingmenu counts corporate giants like Boston Consulting Group, UBS, and Citibank among its regulars, and has recently been chosen as the catering service provider for Parliament of Singapore sittings in October and November 2023. For more information on Livingmenu’s customisable menus and their mission to strengthen the sustainability of Singapore’s local food culture, please visit living.menu.

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