MoNo Foods runs a grocery store where shoppers pay what they wish, built entirely on rescued surplus food

MoNo Foods was founded by Lorraine Koh and Leonard Shee, after the pair noticed how the shift to online grocery shopping was leaving physical stores with unsold, short dated stock that would otherwise be thrown out. Rather than running a conventional food bank, they built a retail model around it: a grocery store, stocked entirely with rescued surplus food, where shoppers pay what they wish.

The concept, which MoNo calls “fill a box,” lets shoppers pay between S$7 and S$35 depending on box size, then fill it with whatever short dated groceries are on the shelves that day. The cofounders describe the goal as giving surplus food “a second chance” rather than letting it go to waste, while keeping prices low enough that the model doubles as a source of affordable groceries.

The store has moved twice in two years, most recently relocating from Chinatown’s Yue Hwa Building to four units in the basement of Tekka Place in July 2024 after a brief closure scare. It added a self checkout system that extends access outside staffed hours via PayNow, on top of regular opening hours from 12pm to 9pm daily, and was still operating at that address as of September 2025.

Beyond the storefront, MoNo runs door to door donation drives that distribute surplus inventory to residents in rental flats and migrant workers, paired with food waste education. MoNo was founded by just two people rather than backed by a company with a dedicated Corporate Social Responsibility budget, a reminder that food security work in Singapore isn’t confined to large corporates’ sustainability reports.