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Should restaurants be required to provide free drinking water to customers? The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy is urging the government to make free drinking water a condition of licensing for food establishments, or maybe even introduce legislation mandating such. But would a policy like this change consumer behaviour, or is the challenge much bigger than what's on the menu? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Azrul Mohd Khalib, CEO of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy
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00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa apres welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:15you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day should restaurants
00:20be required to provide free drinking water to customers well the gallon center for health and
00:27social policy seems to think so because they're urging the government to make free drinking water
00:33a condition of licensing for food establishments or maybe even introduce legislation mandating such
00:39but would a policy like this really change consumer behavior or is the challenge much bigger than what's
00:47on the menu well joining me on the show to discuss this further is azra mohammed khalib who is the
00:51center who is the ceo of the gallon center as well welcome to the show thank you so much for
00:56joining
00:56me talk to me about why the gallon center is calling for a a legal requirement to make
01:03licensed food establishments provide free drinking water why is this an issue for public policy now
01:10well melissa i don't really like to make things mandatory necessarily unnecessarily and the thing
01:17is is that when you come to this issue uh regarding um obesity uh the problem of malnutrition that we
01:26we have in malaysia especially when we consider the fact that the country is suffering from a triple
01:32burden of malnutrition so we have uh people uh a situation where there's obesity uh in the country
01:39there's uh stunting and there's also a deficiency in micronutrients uh you know and this is where we
01:47need there to be simple practical and low cost solutions or measures that can be put forward as a way
01:56forward to address some of these problems especially when we talk about overweight and obesity the
02:02uh understanding right now is very clear when we look at the national health mobility survey it finds
02:09that the most recent edition 2023 found that one in five adults do not drink enough plain water daily
02:18and the usual intake for the malaysian diet so to speak is the sugar sweetened beverage day tarik coffee
02:26uh whatever tarik that you can think of uh abc ice syrup bandung all this sweet stuff is actually
02:35embedded into our diet and there is a problem here because it's much more easier to ingest water that
02:43has sugar in it in the amounts for which we would never dream of if it were to come in
02:50physical form
02:50for example if you were offered half a cup of sugar like you know the fine sugar you get from
02:57the
02:57packet sugar would you drink that uh would you ingest it no you wouldn't right but you could
03:03drink it if it was in a liquid form like you know a high energy drink a isonic drink or
03:11maybe sarsi or you
03:12know root beer or something that's really realistic you suddenly realize that you drank maybe three cups of
03:18sugar in that one simple beverage so it's a lot easier for people to end up being diabetic because
03:26they are taking uh sugar within the context of fluid so what we're proposing here is that let's remove
03:35a hurdle towards getting a healthy option which is to have free drinking water because drinking water
03:43well should be at no cost right but we increasingly find that they're charging
03:48one ringgit three ringgit i've seen eight ringgit and if you like a bottle of pellegrino that probably
03:54costs you around 17 ringgit or something but the point here is that we need to make the option
04:00uh to be that the default beverage choice for a person who's coming in for a meal would be towards
04:06water and this could be one of the ways to do it which is to make sure that the mandate
04:11gives uh is given to
04:13fast food food food courts uh cafes uh walmart shops you know places where people go and have
04:21their meal to have water as an option mcdonald's should have three uh drinks of water oh even fast
04:28food restaurants absolutely all right um as well so what you said just now about you know we need to
04:33have maybe a simple low cost um almost elegant solution an option for customers why has this
04:41not been on the table before or has it been on put on the table before have people talked about
04:46this
04:46before or is the gallon center the first to propose this no it's it's almost common sense melissa a lot
04:52of people we were very surprised by the response that we've been getting from the public express especially
04:58in support of this proposal because they're feeling that they're increasingly being denied the
05:04ability to drink water in food establishments you know like they bring their own water sometimes you
05:10know you'll bring this huge tumblers uh you know to a restaurant and they say oh you can't you can't
05:16drink that you have to drink what you ordered from us right and then there's no option for water
05:20and you don't get any good water either and people want to have the ability to have healthy choices here
05:27and this is one way to go about it because right now uh customers are being nudged with sugar sweetened
05:34beverages favorite drinks carbonated drinks milk teas juices and very high calorie options there so
05:40right now if we're wanting to deal with the issue of diabetes or beastie in a way that isn't much
05:47of a
05:47burden to to people expecting people to change lifestyle for example could be very tricky is that
05:55you make this available people gravitate towards it and i think it's it's not a hard choice to to make
06:00and we have a lot of support out there i think even from politicians from uh even ordinary people who
06:07feel
06:08that it should have been done a long time ago and it is a natural choice right well what are
06:15you hearing
06:15from businesses because this is clearly um you know going to cost businesses not just in providing
06:21the the water but in terms of uh missed business opportunities right i'm sure margins are huge when
06:28it comes to providing sugar sweetened beverages or ordering drinks off the menu if customers walk in
06:34and sit at a table and don't order a drink and just drink the free filter the free drinking water
06:39that is
06:39maybe a cost to the business and may they pass that cost on to other areas on the other uh
06:46dishes
06:46on the menu well melissa you know when you look at how much water should we take you know we're
06:51told by
06:51the ministry of health that we should take around eight classes around two liters of water daily uh for men
06:57it's around uh 3.7 liters and for women it's around 2.7 liters and so there's going to be
07:04a need to drink water
07:06and it needs to happen uh regularly right and this is where i feel that businesses are looking at this
07:14in a very short term way um and so they need to look at business as a long-term strategy
07:22here because
07:24it can attract people to your business it won't push them away it it maybe the cost of doing business
07:30you're filtering water to prepare food anyway and i i just wanted to to to mention because a friend
07:37uh boo ian was asking so if i drink coke does that count in terms of the fluid intake
07:44well unfortunately for him i have to say though it does count towards your fluid intake uh coke isn't
07:49the same in terms of the nutritional value as plain water you know you you have zero calories zero
07:55sugar zero chemicals whereas coke you know there's caffeine there's high sugar content and so forth so
08:01cannot substitute you know for coke there so what i'm saying here is that businesses should use this
08:07opportunity as a way to attract customers i have seen already melissa in some restaurants after this
08:14uh excitement that's come out at this proposal some restaurants not put up signs there it says
08:21free water available here you know and this could draw people to come to the to their restaurant
08:27because people are increasingly finding that they have to pay you know for even a glass of water 50 cents
08:35one ringgit and so forth and the answer is uh you know the question is if we're already buying food
08:41at
08:41your establishment surely water is really not that much cost you know it's just part of the cost of doing
08:47the business as well you're talking about filtered water yes um i'm just wondering filtered water comes
08:53with costs um malaysia can malaysians rely on tap water because if there's a public confidence in
08:59tap water if that's what establishments are offering so we're told that you can drink tap water uh straight
09:06off uh from uh the source but uh in public health you're taught that you should never do that because
09:15uh you should boil your water anyway uh regardless and we find that in many establishments every
09:23people especially those that are preparing beverages they boil the water and there's a lot of it you know
09:28if you go to a mamak restaurant for example there's a huge tank of boiled water so what does it
09:34cost
09:35really you just take some of that water and put it into a cup it you know these are actually
09:41uh
09:41uh straw man arguments not really when you look at it because they're not real arguments uh they're
09:46just uh wanting to to push back against this idea that uh water costs so much that we can't uh
09:55uh
09:57we can't provide it instead we have to offer much more expensive beverages for which we can make more
10:03money off but i can tell you you can make a lot of money from just offering plain water especially
10:08now that
10:09in our society people are more and more conscious about making sure that they get enough of their
10:13daily intake you know of water and a restaurant that is able to provide that will have i would argue
10:19uh competitive advantage compared to those that don't and i have to say when they say it's very
10:25strange because you go to some of the high-end uh eating establishments it seems like they're providing
10:30water you know by default it's not even a question that you sit down they offer water and i'm not
10:37necessarily seeing uh necessarily seeing it in very very expensive but the mid-range establishments
10:44water is a default but when we get down further then you find that there's more resistance especially
10:50at the copy tm that kind of establishment but at full courts they're offering water now uh in some of
10:57the
10:57even mama shops are offering so i'm just suggesting what everybody are doing everybody's already doing
11:03anyway because it is something that that gets them customers it doesn't push customers away and by
11:09making it a requirement as licensing for example at the local government area it actually ensures that
11:15there is a deliberate uh effort to make sure water is available to anybody who wants it and address that
11:21problem even that water access to water itself as well have you heard from any of the um you know
11:28state
11:28governments state exgos aduns or politicians feedback from from this proposal and i'm just wondering if
11:36the government won't legislate or is reluctant to legislate um what would then be the next best option
11:44well you know uh in some other countries that we looked at and this is something that we see in
11:49places
11:49like in the uk spain even australia down uh we find that uh this is part of uh licensing requirements
11:58and if you want to have a food and beverage uh establishment then you know you've got to have
12:04water provided in fact in india um they actually make it that customers are not required to buy bottled
12:14water when there is portable drinking water uh provided so uh you can have mineral water you can have
12:20choice you can definitely have that but you should also have that as an option you can do that not
12:26at the
12:27national level you don't have to do it at the national level to be honest uh you can do it
12:31at local
12:32government level where many of these things are uh regulated uh and uh food establishments are licensed
12:38and you know what melissa i already heard from some uh states who have responded to this already
12:46uh which is exciting to see such as in penang uh they're thinking about it penang of all places you
12:53think they'll say no uh over my dead body situation but no they're actually uh considering for nasi kanda
12:59uh restaurants and mama shops over there because they're already doing it so if they put in a
13:05requirement it's like oh you know it's it's it's a no-brainer for a lot of these establishments because
13:11uh at the end of the day what we need to be able to have is an increase in excess
13:16of water that is drinkable
13:18that helps support our efforts to reduce sugar intake uh you know the strengthen that food
13:24environment we talk about that's creating uh the conditions for non-competitive diseases like diabetes
13:30kidney disease cancer uh liver disease and so forth so there's a lot of of things that we can address
13:36from a metabolic disease prevention point of view simply by increasing the possibility of people
13:43especially children and adolescents drinking water because we're seeing now more and more metabolic
13:48disease occurring amongst younger people children are getting diabetes type 2 at 14 15 years of age
13:57why is that is because believe it or not water is not available and they may not like to drink
14:04water
14:04because their family environment doesn't have just plain water you know available and everybody gravitates
14:10with sugar drinks beverages and so forth so let's just create environments where water is easily
14:17available free drinking water in all restaurants uh licensed food premises and so forth so we definitely
14:23can do it in this and we're already starting to see penang can lead the way with the nasi kanda
14:27restaurants doing it anyway and then we'll see other the joho and slangor well benang takes its food very
14:35seriously so yes exactly a leader in that as well thank you so much for joining me on the show
14:40i
14:40appreciate your time as roman mac kalib there from the gallon center for health and social policy we're
14:45going to take a quick break more on this topic in just a couple minutes stay tuned to consider
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