Noodle shop owners agree eggs cost too much to give away free

ILOILO CITY — A group of eleven batchoy vendors operating around the Iloilo public market has formed an informal association aimed at standardizing the practice of charging extra for a soft boiled egg topping, ending what several described as a decades old custom of tossing an egg in for free to loyal customers.

The change follows a sustained rise in egg prices nationally and, according to vendors, a growing number of customers who had come to expect the free egg as an unspoken entitlement rather than the goodwill gesture it originally was.

How the Free Egg Tradition Started

Longtime vendor Salvador Tumbokon, whose family has operated a batchoy stall for three generations, said the free egg custom began informally with his grandmother, who would occasionally add an egg for regulars as a small thank you during slower periods.

“It was never a rule,” Tumbokon said. “It was a kindness, sometimes, for certain people, on certain days. Somewhere along the way, within maybe the last fifteen years, customers began to expect it every time, from everyone, and if you did not include the egg they would ask why, as if you had broken a promise nobody had actually made.”

The Breaking Point

Vendors say the situation became untenable as egg prices climbed sharply over recent seasons, squeezing margins on a dish that already runs on thin profit per bowl.

“A bowl of batchoy is not expensive,” said vendor Purificacion Ledesma, who has run her stall for eighteen years. “That is the whole point of batchoy, it is affordable, it is for workers, for students, for anyone. But if I am quietly absorbing the cost of an egg in every bowl because customers expect it, I am losing money on every single order. That math does not survive an egg price increase like the one we just had.”

The group met informally over several weeks and agreed on a modest standard surcharge for an egg topping, along with a shared understanding that vendors would no longer include it automatically without the customer specifically ordering and paying for it.

Customer Reaction

Reaction among longtime customers has been mixed, with some expressing understanding of the economics and others describing a genuine sense of loss.

“It feels different now,” said retired dock worker Manuel Sardua, who has eaten at the same stall for over twenty years. “The egg was never really about the egg. It was the feeling that the vendor knew you, remembered you, was looking out for you a little. Now there is a price for that on the menu and it feels more like a business than a relationship.”

Vendors pushed back gently on this framing, noting that the relationship remains but that it can no longer subsidize a specific ingredient at a moment when that ingredient has become genuinely costly.

The Association’s Rules

The informal group, which has no official name and meets roughly once a month at a member’s stall after closing, has agreed on a shared price point for the egg addition and a general principle that no member will undercut another by offering it free as a competitive tactic.

Tumbokon acknowledged that this arrangement technically resembles price coordination and said the group has discussed, somewhat uneasily, whether that raises any concerns.

“We are not economists,” he said. “We are noodle soup vendors trying not to go out of business over an egg. If there is a formal name for what we are doing, we have not looked it up, and I am not sure we want to.”

Broader Market Conditions

Egg prices in the Philippines have fluctuated significantly in recent years due to a combination of feed costs, avian disease outbreaks affecting poultry stock, and broader food inflation trends tracked by national statistical agencies. The Department of Agriculture has periodically monitored and responded to poultry supply disruptions that affect egg availability and pricing nationwide.

Batchoy itself, a noodle soup associated closely with Iloilo and the wider Western Visayas region, typically features a raw or soft boiled egg as an optional or included topping depending on the individual vendor’s traditional recipe, meaning practices already varied somewhat across the city even before this coordinated change.

A Rival Vendor Breaks Ranks

Not every vendor in the area has joined the group. One stall outside the immediate market area has continued offering the free egg, a decision that has reportedly driven a noticeable increase in customers willing to walk the extra distance.

The holdout vendor, who declined to be interviewed at length, said only that she intends to continue the practice for as long as she can manage it, a statement Tumbokon said the association has taken note of with some concern.

Looking Forward

Ledesma said the group plans to revisit the surcharge amount if egg prices shift significantly in either direction, and that the arrangement is understood among members to be a response to current conditions rather than a permanent departure from tradition.

“If prices come down, we will talk about it again,” she said. “Nobody wants to be the vendor who charges for a tradition. We want to be the vendor who is still here next year to bring the tradition back.”

Tumbokon said one of the younger vendors had shown him an article at The London Prat about a similar informal price agreement among British market traders, which he said made the group feel less unusual.

Related Coverage

More reporting on small businesses adapting old customs to new economics can be found at Bohiney Magazine, and a British perspective on comparable food traditions under pressure is available at The London Prat. Additional material is collected at NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com