Causes for Recent SOTA Students Food Poisoning Incident and Details of Shelf-life Product Testing under Food Resilience Preparedness Programme

Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in view of the suspension of the Total Defence food resilience programme after the School of the Arts food poisoning incident (a) what processes are currently in place to vet suppliers of ready-to-eat meals for all Government programmes; and (b) whether there are plans to introduce more stringent checks or audits to ensure compliance with food safety regulations.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment with regard to the gastroenteritis outbreak among students at the School of the Arts after consuming ready-to-eat meals prepared by SATS at a Food Resilience Preparedness Programme on 18 February 2025 (a) how many meals were contaminated and whether the contamination extended to meals for other organisations such as active ageing centres; (b) what are the causes for the contamination; and (c) whether any penalties will be imposed against SATS.

The Food Resilience Preparedness Programme (FRPP) which involved the distribution of over 100,000 Ready-to-Eat (RTE) meals to secondary schools, pre-universities, Institutes of Technical Education, public agencies and Active Ageing Centres, was part of this year’s commemoration of Total Defence Day. The RTE distribution was originally scheduled to take place from 15 February to 28 February.

On 19 February 2025, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) was informed that 20 students at SOTA exhibited symptoms of gastroenteritis after they had consumed RTE meals. Students who needed medical attention sought outpatient medical treatment and have since recovered. None of the students were hospitalised.

On 20 February 2025, SFA, together with the Ministry of Education (MOE), Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) and food caterer SATS, decided to pause the FRPP until investigations on the SOTA gastroenteritis cases were concluded. At the same time, we also reached out to other recipient institutions to ascertain if there were other cases of related illness.

Joint investigations by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and SFA are ongoing. As of 3 March, the total number of verified cases of gastroenteritis was 187, of which 184 were from schools, two were from Active Ageing Centres and one from a public agency. This constituted about 0.16% of the participants. All affected individuals have received the necessary medical attention and have since recovered. None were hospitalised.

SFA has also collected samples of the meals for testing. The tests did not find any foodborne pathogens. SFA and MOH are conducting a comprehensive investigation of this incident, and SFA will take the necessary corrective and enforcement actions if lapses are detected.

Members asked about the food safety processes applied to the supply of RTE meals. SATS, as an SFA-licensed establishment, is required to comply with food safety requirements and subjected to food safety inspections. Food safety requirements include ensuring that food preparation areas and process workflows are set up in a way that prevent cross-contamination between raw and cooked food, putting systems in place to ensure cleanliness and freedom from pest infestation, as well as having food workers certified with food safety training.

SFA inspected SATS’ premises on 23 January 2025, prior to the start of the FRPP. The premises were found to be clean and no food safety violations were detected. SATS had also put in place additional measures for FRPP. Each meal produced under the FRPP was individually tested for leaks. Further, an SFA-accredited laboratory conducted sample microbiological testing to ensure food safety.

Members asked about steps taken to restore public confidence in the safety of RTE meals used in resilience programmes. We agree that we need to restore public confidence in the RTE meals. As investigation is ongoing, it is too early to state the steps to take. SFA will conduct an after-action review to draw and learn from the lessons of this episode. SFA will continue to engage stakeholders, including schools, food businesses and community partners on our FRPP.

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive answer. I have Clementi residents who followed this news and were understandably concerned that there were reports of food poisoning in conjunction with certain RTE meals. I have got two sets of supplementary questions for the Minister.

Firstly, based on media reports, these are ambient RTE meals, which means they were described as not requiring any special storage or refrigeration and could be eaten straight away. There were media reports that described the meals also as having real-time shelf-life studies. Can I ask as part of these shelf-life studies, under what kind of storage temperatures the testing was done to test the shelf-life? And did these storage temperatures reflect the variation that can happen when such meals are stored in the community for longer periods of time? Because weather can be warmer when these meals are being stored in a venue that may have sunlight coming from time to time, and so on?

Secondly, can I also ask regarding the cases that have been found, were there any cluster effects, clustering of cases besides the one at SOTA, as that may help agencies understand if particular batches were affected, or if there may have been some other concurrent infection outbreak happening?

With regard to the first question about the conditions for testing, we believe that SATS had tested the RTE meals in the real-time, real case situations, simulating the transportation and storage conditions. But Dr Tan is absolutely right in the sense that these are the questions that SFA and MOH, together with SATS, will ask as we review the entire exercise. It is important for us to learn from this exercise, including some of the test conditions, to make sure that this programme will evolve more robust than before.

As to the question of whether there was clustering, I think we are still getting the data. We would like to provide a fuller picture after we have gone through the data.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for her reply. I have two sets of supplementary questions.

First is while the Ministry conducts regular inspections to ensure compliance with food safety regulations, can the Ministry clarify whether these audits encompass the entire supply chain of RTE food production, from ingredient sourcing to final delivery? And if certain stages are excluded, what are the reasons for these like omissions and how might they impact the overall safety of the food provided to Singaporeans?

And secondly, to enhance public trust, is the Ministry considering making food safety violations by suppliers more transparent? For instance, will there be a public registry of food safety lapses or penalties imposed on suppliers?

On the first questions about inspection and food safety, indeed, SFA conducts regular inspections. We have also, through the enactment of the Food Safety and Security Bill (FSSB) recently, enhanced the framework of ensuring food safety across all stages of supply of food – from importation to wholesaling to preparation to retail.

Of course, if you look at the entire value chain, not all of them are of the same risk. So, we need to take a risk-based approach, scientifically-based approach to dedicate and focus our inspection resources, so that we are more effective in ensuring food safety as a framework.

As to the RTE process, I have mentioned in my answer earlier on, we have inspected the premises before the FRPP and are satisfied with the outcome of the inspection. Also, as of today, our results have shown that there were no food-borne pathogens detected in the samples of the RTE meals. We do not want to draw any conclusion at this point in time. We want to do a fuller review and we will look at all possible causes of these gastroenteritis cases.

On transparency, again, in the FSSB, there will be a new regime to ensure that our food establishments are licensed according to their readiness, according to the system that they have put in place. If they have many food infringements, they will be downgraded, they will be given more inspections audits along the way. So, our SFA officers will take a risk-based approach. If there has been infringements in the past, we will inspect more frequently. And by grading the caterers and food establishments, we are hoping to give that information, that transparency to buyers and consumers.

Can I ask the Minister how long will the review or the investigation take?

I think that we are working as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we have suspended this programme. The RTE meals are actually isolated and controlled, so we do not see that going into the public. So, there is no urgency from a food safety point of view. The packages are all collected, so we are not continuing with this programme for the time being. [Please refer to "Clarification by Minister for Sustainability and the Environment", Official Report, 4 March 2025, Vol 95, Issue 157, Correction By Written Statement section.]

We will do our best to do a study quickly, but more importantly is to get ourselves ready for the next programme. We have to learn and take positive lessons from this programme. How do we get Singapore to be ready to be resilient to disruptions? And the disruption is not just in food supply. What if we lack the facilities to cook food? How can we continue to provide nutritious food to the population in large numbers and in a way that is palatable to the population?

This is in no means a small undertaking. We will have to learn from this lesson. We are expected to learn from it and be better. So, we will do it in due course and in full readiness before our next roll-out of the programme.