Fried, boiled or steamed, Singaporeans consume well over a million fishballs every day.
But if you haven’t noticed, fishball prices have been steadily rising over the years – in supermarkets for example, fishballs are now 30 per cent more expensive compared to some 10 years ago.
This is primarily due to the rise in the prices of yellow-tail fish, which is commonly used to make fishballs. And yellow-tail fish, or to be more precise the yellow-tail redbelly fusilier, makes arguably the best type of fishballs.
Most yellow-tail fish sold in Singapore are wild-caught in neighbouring Indonesian waters.
DoDo brand, one of the largest suppliers of fishballs in Singapore, has transformed the much-loved fishball into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Their factories make some two million fishballs every day.
Fayy Lim, the deputy chief operating officer (product development) of DoDo Fishball, said they have upped the price of their fishballs in the last two years due to an increase in raw material prices and utility costs, which has risen more than 20 per cent since five years ago.
Mediacorp 2019. Mediacorp Pte Ltd.