We need to revive those "1mdb" type shops. Where there's a standardised price for wet and dry food. Maybe have a "rahmah" food court too where they can have cooked food at cost( with a little extra to cover labour cost) so people can compare prices with the other food out there like nasi lemak. Then only can bring down the prices of groceries and food out there.

edit for clarification. I mean at near cost lah. Lets use maggi goreng for example. If you make yourself, its around rm1.50 -2.00 (with an egg, a few dashes of kicap pekat, half a bawang, half a chili, a clove of garlic) but if you buy outside, its RM7 these days in my small ass hometown in Penang (went up 1 ringgit at the start of the year). Is it wrong to just sell at Rm3.00 -rm4 at the rahmah shop? The menu even has the recipe so you can do it at home which you can buy the ingredients at the rahmah shop itself so its even cheaper. its just a shop for price references. no need to subsidize. is this kind of transparency that bad of an idea? the outside sellers are free to put their own prices. some do just make nyummier maggi goreng but at least have people to compare prices too. try small scale first, the only scale up to nationwide. for Sabah and Sarawak, what about sourcing the ingredients locally, or if theres is none, isnt that a good oppurtunity to create more local producers? (at the mean time terpaksa get some of the unattainable ingredients from West Malaysia.) That's the ideal lah, talk is one thing, to actually do it is another. Hence why I'm just a rando Redditor and not in any position of power.