For F&B business owners, the past few months have definitely been challenging. However, with government funding and third-party assistance, things have looked up for the better since.

F&B businesses have also opened up their horizons in their approach to their customers. From hosting their own eCommerce sites to offering delivery services, they have put in much work to sustain themselves.

With the announcement of the Fortitude Budget, F&B business may look to the brighter side of things with the promised financial assistance rendered by the government.

In addition to the $60 billion that has been set aside in the earlier budgets, the Fortitude budget will ramp up another $33 billion. Without question, assistance to the F&B industry will also be rendered.

How The F&B Industry Is Affected

If you’re a hawker stall owner, you’ll enjoy an additional 2 months waived as well.

Businesses may also look forward to lower costs via wage support. The Job Support Scheme will be extended for another month in August 2020.

Digitisation Incentives

Including F&B businesses, there will be another $500 million set aside for companies to digitise.

For industrial canteens, wet markets, coffee shops and hawker centres, a bonus of $300 per month over the duration of 5 months will be provided. This provision by IMDA, NEA, JTC, HDB and Enterprise Singapore aims to encourage these businesses to use e-payments and avoid physical cash handling.

The Digital Resilience Bonus will be introduced to help businesses take their next step to digitalise. It will start with F&B and retail sectors, whereby businesses may receive a payout of up to $5,000 if they adopt digitisation measures such as PayNow Corporate, with an additional $5,000 if they use advanced solutions.

Advanced solutions such as the aspects of hardware and software, infrastructure, connectivity, cyber-security, integrations, development, enhancement and project management are included.

So your POS integrations and online payment options may just come in handy. In fact, the government aims to bolster digitisation efforts by recruiting 1,000 digital ambassadors by the end of June. This is to ensure that stallholders and seniors are aware of the digital tools made available, as well as the knowledge on how to use them.

The ambassadors will cover all hawker centres and wet markets to ensure that sellers adopt SGQR codes as an alternative to handling physical cash.

Conclusion

The Fortitude Budget aims to re-open Singapore’s economy with an additional $33 billion on top of the $60 billion that was set aside in the earlier budgets. This would mean that the F&B industry and market in Singapore will no doubt be taken care of.

We wish all F&B industry members the best of luck in their endeavours and may we all come out of this pandemic successfully as one industry, as well as one Singapore.