F&B and retail companies to get help to offset delivery costs, go digital: Enterprise Singapore

[SINGAPORE] Food and beverage as well as retail businesses will get more help to defray operational costs and tap on the online market, amid the tighter Covid-19 restrictions.

A Food Delivery Booster Package, which will offset part of food delivery costs; and an E-Commerce Booster Package, which helps brick-and mortar retailers including heartland shops to go online, will be re-introduced from Sunday. These packages will help affected F&B and retail businesses to "diversify their revenue channels and defray business costs of going online", said Enterprise Singapore (ESG).

Under the Food Delivery Booster Package, ESG will fund five percentage points of the commission cost charged by the three food delivery platforms Deliveroo, Foodpanda and GrabFood.

This is for transactions made between Sunday and June 15.

To be eligible for the delivery funding, F&B businesses must sell food that is prepared on premise for immediate consumption. This includes smaller establishments such as hawker stalls and cafes, and larger outfits such as food caterers and restaurants.

Merchants retailing only prepackaged products, such as snacks and ice cream, are excluded.

Eligible businesses will automatically benefit from the lower commission cost if they are fulfilling delivery orders through these three delivery platforms, said ESG in a statement.

ESG assistant chief executive Dilys Boey said there are concerns about the additional resources required to deal with the latest tightening of measures, which will have an impact on companies.

"We are providing support through the booster packages to help defray some of these operational costs. More importantly, we urge F&B and retail businesses who have yet to get onboard e-commerce to tap these packages to adapt their business models for online sales," she added.

"For those already selling via food delivery or e-commerce platforms, we hope that this support can help them onboard additional platforms to widen their existing sales channels."

THE STRAITS TIMES

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