News & Update

Dear Service Ambassadors,

I am glad to announce that Temasek Polytechnic and The Tourism Academy @ Sentosa were on news the day before regarding the wine course for NTUC staff. In addition, Service Ambassadors was praised by various staff for offering help and doing a great job behind the scenes. Three cheers to Service Ambassadors! And thanks for Mr Lee and Mr Neo to get us involved.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those who came down and offer their service for Singapore Gourmet Hunt Best Dish (Western category) competition and also the upcoming TAS guides on 11th November, this coming Saturday. Let's all work hard to get Service Ambassadors known to the public soon too.

This is the actual report courtesy of CNA:

SINGAPORE: NTUC FairPrice has sent 22 of its staff to learn about the different types of wine and the regions they are produced in.

It teamed up with Temasek Polytechnic to conduct a 50-hour course at The Tourism Academy at Sentosa.

These staff may have been wine novices before the course, but they are certainly showing potential as connoisseurs.

Many of these NTUC FairPrice staff are in charge of the wine section in their respective branches so it pays to know if a particular wine tastes earthy or has a long finish.

These NTUC staff, with experiences from one to 26 years, often have to deal with customers asking them about wine.

Customers want to know what is good for beginners as well as what kind of wine is good for certain type of food.

After sampling over 50 types of wine during this course, the staff are now ready to make their professional recommendations.

Ryan Seow, Dawson Branch Manager at NTUC FairPrice, says: "Our customers are getting more and more sophisticated in their appreciation for wines, so this wine course has actually taught us various aspects of wine such as wine-making as well as food and wine pairing.”

Jasper Chan, Deputy Manager of Toa Payoh HDB Hub Branch, NTUC FairPrice, says a retiree has been asking him to recommend some wine to him, so knowledge from this course will allow him to advise the customer appropriately.

These students took notes while observing the differences in various wines over eight weeks.

To earn their Skills Certificate in Wine for Trade Professionals, they had to sit through a four-course dinner as their final exam and decide whether the wine served was suitable for a particular dish.

Tan Hsien Wei, Hospitality & Tourism Management, Temasek Polytechnic, says: "There's a demand for this kind of knowledge as can be seen in participation of NTUC and other companies. This is also in line with the developments of the IRs as there's a lot more interest in F & B.

"Whether they're coming from hotels, private restaurants or companies like NTUC, we think there's a greater demand for knowledge in those areas so that they can better serve their customers and clients."

So far, about 80 people from industries like shipping and banking have taken the course at Temasek Polytechnic. - CNA/so