Our vision is to bring the freshest and finest produce conveniently available to everyone.
May Lim, Founder of Claude & Clari Pte Ltd
Wet Market has gotten a bad name in recent months because of novel covid-19 or the corona virus that started in Wuhan’s wet markets.
No matter which continent we live in, this virus has affected the way we interact, eat and go about our daily lives.
My family has been affected as well. In March 2020, my husband, Constant, was admitted to the hospital when he was tested positive for covid-19. In Singapore, he was patient #289, the cab driver who drove the third fatal victim who was the Indonesian man who came to Singapore for a medical checkup.
As he is the sole bread winner in our family, I decided I had to do something about it. I have two school-going daughters I have to support while he is getting back to health in ICU.
So I answered a call by Pamela Lim, who was reaching out to those who are affected in this crisis. After attending a courser with her team, we contracted the team’s consulting and implementation services and built a web wet market, a platform that allows the public to purchase from wet markets online.
My idea was simple. I wanted to keep the Wet Market Heritage alive and bring the freshest produce straight to people’s doorsteps. In the digital time and age, I felt sad to acknowledge that we would eventually lose our heritage if nobody does anything. While I do see the value big organizations and supermarkets bring, I also treasure empathize with the fate of smaller entrepreneurs.
I wanted to do my part. I wanted to help bring small business owners and stallholders get connected with the digital age, to not only keep our heritage alive, but also to help make their goods available to those of us who have access to the internet. The wet market stalls that I am familiar with have great stuff that huge online supermarkets don’t. We need these in our home dining tables.
In executing my simple idea, I also hope to make other people’s lives better. I hope that these hawkers, who come from every corner of Singapore, will continue to not only survive but thrive. I also hope that by giving delivery jobs to the drivers to deliver groceries to people’s homes, these drivers/small entrepreneurs will continue to have good incomes.
We have been working since 1 April, 2020, and the process so far has been challenging with lots of hard work, patience and a whole lot of determination. Going from store to store has not been easy especially during these times with the covid-19 lockdowns or circuit breakers. In the hopes that we can gain the seller’s trust and confidence in our business, we talk to people who cannot wait to shoo us away and often along with cynical remarks.
But we are determined to continue.
Thanks to Pamela and her team, we are now blessed to have a system. But this is only a start. What we need now is support from the public. From people who would help us put stallholders online, to drivers who are willing to drive for us for a reasonable fee, to customers who will be patient enough to buy from us and work with us as we learn together.
We are not perfect. But I know that if we have the support of the community, we can get better, and a larger community will gain ultimately.
Just as the great Albert Einstein has said, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”. And so, we hope our idea spurs others to not only work with us, but to work with others as well.
As for Constant, we are so happy to report that he is now corona virus free!