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(Updated) Available Supports from Singapore Government for f&b SMEs During COVID-19 Outbreak

· Grant,Support,Subsidy,Covid-19,Restaurant

To cushion the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs, a special S$4 billion Stabilization and Support Package (as part of the Unity Budget) has been introduced to help workers to remain employed and aid companies with cash flow. As the global economy and COVID-19 outbreak continue to worsen, Singapore Government has launched a second stimulus package (known as the Resilience Budget). The Resilience Budget, worth a tremendous amount of S$48.4 billion, aims to support households, help workers stay employed and provide support for enterprises and businesses to rebound stronger when the timing is right.

Government Grants for food & beverage (f&b) businesses:

Productivity Solution Grant

Key Eligibility includes:

  • Registered and operating in Singapore 
  • Purchase/lease/subscription of IT solutions or equipment must be used in Singapore 
  • Have a minimum of 30% local shareholding (for selected solutions only) 
Companies who are keen to adopt IT solutions to digitalise its business processes can opt to apply the Productivity Solution Grants (PSG). The support level is raised from 70% to 90% from 1 April 2020 to 31 December 2020.
Support solutions for f&b services include accounting management, human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), remote working solutions, visitor management - queue management system, combi oven and high speed oven.
PSG has also been enhanced to include the Laptop Bundled Remote Working Solutions (Business grade laptop and Office 365). Eligible SMEs will receive support for up to three (03) laptops and online collaboration tools within each package. This initiative is launched by IMDA and ESG and have pre-approved two solutions by M1 and Singtel.

E-invoicing Registration Grant

  • Register your company now on the E-invoicing Network and Receive $200. (One-time payment per UEN)
This new scheme is from IMDA in partnership with ESG to help business to digitalise. IMDA has implemented the nationwide E-invoicing network in 2019 to improve efficiency. With approved accounting/ERP solution that is peppol-ready, companies are now able to submit e-invoices to the Government agencies via this network.
Registered companies are eligible for a one-time payment of S$200 per UEN, upon first registration to the E-invoicing Network on or before 31 December 2020. No application is required for this grant.

Food Delivery Booster Package

  • Funding of five (05) percentage points of commission cost charged 
  • Capability development pack (worth S$1,500) at a fee of S$100. 
  • Funding of 20% of delivery cost through third party logistics partners 
  • Up to 90% funding through the Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) to develop a 1. Virtual Brand and/or 2. Online to Offline (O2O) Strategy. 
This package will help to reduce and defray some business costs of selling on the six key food delivery platforms - Bungkus, Chope, Deliveroo, Foodpanda, Grabfood and Startaster.

Funding for Cooked Food Stallholders on Food Delivery Services

  • A one-time funding of S$500 per cooked food stallholder

The one-time funding will be given to cooked food stallholders operating at Singapore's hawker center, who engages food delivery platforms or third-party logistics partners to deliver their food between 7 April and 31 May. The stallholder must be operating in hawker centres managed by NEA or NEA-appointed operators.

This funding can be applied through National Environment Agency (NEA).

Support for training and upgrading of employees:

Skillsfuture Enterprise Credit (SFEC)

  • Employers who have contributed at least S$750 Skills Development Levy, employed at least three Singapore Citizens (SCs) or Permanent Residents (PRs), have not been qualified at any of the earlier periods and are eligible for the grant.

Qualifying Periods:

  • 1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020
  • 1 July 2019 – 30 June 2020
  • 1 October 2019 – 30 September 2020
  • 1 January 2020 – 31 December 2020

Eligible employers will receive a one-off S$10,000 credit to cover up to 90% of out-of-pocket expenses on qualifying costs for supportable initiative. To encourage employers to train and upskill their workers, S$3,000 of the credit should be used for workforce transformation programmes and employers can only use up to S$7,000 for enterprise transformation.

Digital Marketing Programme

  • 90% of training course to be funded by Enterprise Singapore (ESG) 
  • Additional S$500 campaign bonus to be given after a successful campaign launched after the programme 
  • Each f&b business can send up to two (02) employees for this programme

To help f&b businesses who are suffering due to the insufficient footfall caused by COVID-19, a digital marketing training programme has been created to help f&b scale up their digital platform.

The course will cover content marketing and social media paid advertisement workshop, with one-on-one coaching with the trainer after each course. At the end of the programme, companies can choose to launch a Facebook or instagram ad and/or google Ad to qualify for the additional campaign bonus.

The RAFT (Recover, Acquire & ProFit) Programme by Click Academy Asia is supported by ESG (90% subsidy). Eligible f&b operators must have a UEN and an existing outlet with SFA license to qualify. More information can be found on https://events.clickacademyasia.com/clickacademy-asia-raft-programme/

During sign up, remember to quote "KitchenSq" in your application form!

(Update as of 28 May 2020) Digital Resilience Bonus (as announced during Fortitude Budget)

Food Services and Retail enterprises that adopt pre-defined categories of digital solutions can receive now bonus payouts of up to $10,000 to offset the cost of adoption.

More details will be announced on a later date. For the full write up by Singapore Budget, click here.