Question
Mr Liang Eng Hwa: To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry whether there is an oversupply of food and beverage outlets and whether the manpower situation will worsen given the impending growth in this sector coupled with various mega projects in the pipeline.
Written Answer (attributed to Mr Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry)
The number of establishments in the Food and Beverages (F&B) sector has increased from 6,000 in 2009 to 7,000 in 2014. The total number of workers employed has also increased at an annual rate of 4.8 per cent from December 2009 to December 2014, which is higher than the overall workforce growth rate of 3.9 per cent over the same period. This trend is not sustainable given our labour constraints. In addition, sales volume in the F&B sector is slowing down and companies are facing greater competition. It is therefore important for the F&B sector to improve its productivity and become more manpower-efficient.
Under the Food Services Productivity Roadmap, SPRING has implemented strategies to drive sector transformation through mass adoption of productivity initiatives. These include kitchen automation, workflow redesign, centralised dishwashing, vending machine formats, grab-and-go formats and digital services. F&B enterprises can tap on SPRING’s Capability Development Grant (CDG) and Innovation and Capability Voucher (ICV) to develop capabilities, improve productivity, adopt technology and innovation to reduce reliance on manpower.