Speech by Senior Minister of State Low Yen Ling at Grab’s Full House Mission @ Tanjong Pagar

Mr Alejandro Osorio, Managing Director of Grab Singapore 

Distinguished guests, 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

1.    Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to join you today for the launch of Grab's Full House Mission. A “full house” is what every F&B business hopes for: tables filled, kitchens buzzing, and customers leaving satisfied – looking forward to return. 

Singapore's F&B Sector: Resilient, but Facing Real Challenges 

2.    Singapore’s F&B sector plays a critical and significant role in our economy and our everyday lives. As a food paradise, Singapore offers a vibrant and diverse culinary scene that is enjoyed by fellow Singaporeans and tourists. At the same time, we know and recognise that the operating environment has become more challenging. Competition is intense, and post-COVID consumer preferences are constantly evolving. 

3.    This is where partnerships between the public and private sector can make a meaningful difference. In January this year, Grab and Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) signed an MOU to strengthen Singapore’s F&B sector. This partnership focuses on two key areas. 

a.    First, enhancing market visibility and customer demand through marketing efforts such as “Dine Out” campaigns. 

b.    Second, helping F&B businesses build new capabilities and make better use of data insights through workshops and masterclasses[1]. 

Bringing It to Life: Tanjong Pagar and Beyond 

4.    Complementing the Full House Mission, EnterpriseSG, in partnership with Grab, is launching its first “Dine Out Precincts” campaign in Tanjong Pagar. The campaign will leverage consumer promotions to drive footfall and spending at businesses in the area. These efforts will be amplified by targeted marketing efforts through in-app channels and third-party media platforms. 

5.    Earlier, Alejandro mentioned a few insights, and I think we all remember the 74 per cent cited. It is true, I am one of them and many of us is too – when it is lunch or dinner, we love to pick up our phone and see what is on GrabFood, what do we feel like having today. This is where we can direct the eyeballs to your page and drive the demand. Today's Full House Mission builds on that foundation. It brings together an expanded suite of initiatives to help F&B businesses grow sustainably. These include delivery deals and merchant spotlights to drive demand, merchant roundtables to strengthen capabilities and better access to growth opportunities. 

6.    This builds on EnterpriseSG’s ongoing efforts to develop precincts like Tanjong Pagar into distinctive lifestyle destinations that offer curated retail and dining experiences. Through the “Dine Out Precincts” campaign, we hope to give businesses in the area greater visibility, draw more visitors to the neighbourhood, and encourage more people to discover what Tanjong Pagar has to offer. 

Complementary Efforts by F&B Businesses 

7.    Beyond Government support, businesses in the F&B ecosystem also play a critical role. This is where the power of the ecosystem working together — where businesses like yourself, platform partners like Grab, and the Government like MTI and EnterpriseSG – each can play a part, coming together to maximise the synergy to strengthen our F&B sector. 

a.    An example is Lavi Tacos. Set up by Edmund Goh, the restaurant serves contemporary Mexican cuisine. As one of the 11 F&B establishments at KADA in the Maxwell area, Lavi Tacos has been working with fellow enterprises to host DJ nights to enliven the vicinity. These efforts have helped bring new crowds to Tanjong Pagar and generated about 20 per cent more revenue, growing your topline and bottom-line. The collaboration need not be confined to only F&B. For the heartlands, we have the Heartland Enterprise Placemaking Grant (HEPG). We can marry all these together with arts and culture, to do more placemaking, drive the traffic, create lots of reasons for not only people staying in Tanjong Pagar to come but all over Singapore to come here, including tourists, to make this the place for them to come experience and take photos so that words will travel by word of mouth and more people will come experience it. 

b.    With Grab's support now amplifying visibility and boosting consumer demand, businesses like Lavi Tacos stand to benefit even more. 

8.    The support is here, and it is here to stay. Whether you are a restaurant, a café, or a micro food operator, partners like Grab and EnterpriseSG are ready to help and support you. We want to assure you that this is not the finished product – we want to continue to take in your feedback on what work, what doesn’t work, what other areas we should look at and what are the blind spots. This will continue to be an iterative process to serve you better. I encourage all F&B businesses to make full use of the resources available – to participate actively in the available programmes, tap on the training and support, and join the promotions and schemes provided for your growth and transformation. 

Conclusion 

9.    Our F&B sector is more than just an industry; it’s part of who we are as Singaporeans. Our food culture and legacy form an important part of our Singaporean identity. When our F&B businesses thrive, Singapore thrives too. The partnership announced today reflects EnterpriseSG and the Government’s continued commitment to our F&B sector. I look forward to seeing stronger, more resilient F&B businesses as Grab and EnterpriseSG deepen their efforts to boost the F&B sector. 

10. Congratulations to Grab and EnterpriseSG on this launch. To all the businesses here today, please spread the word and I wish you many full houses ahead. 

11. Thank you. 

[1] Under the SkillsFuture Singapore initiative, Grab is an appointed SkillsFuture Queen Bee (SFQB),championing skills development and providing support for SMEs in the Food Services sector. This includes masterclasses and workshops that focus on productivity, innovation and digital transformation.