F&B Advocate

Food & Beverage Advocate Award

F&B Alliance rescues HK’s ailing industry

The Cathay Pacific HK IWSC recognised a new category of industry advocate this year, bestowing the Save Hong Kong F&B Alliance with its inaugural F&B Industry Leadership & Advocacy Award.

Restaurants and bars recorded an almost 50 per cent drop in both volume of receipts and value in 2020’s second quarter, with even greater pain expected in third quarter figures, due to ongoing travel restrictions and cautious reemergence by local diners.

In April, Alan Lo, Gigi Ng, May Chow, Agung Prabowo and others teamed up to found the Save Hong Kong F&B Alliance. “Our industry is suffering and on the verge of collapse. With inadequate support from our government, the industry and its livelihoods are being severely impacted with no end in sight,” the Alliance posted on Instagram (@savehkfnb).

The Alliance launched its 2020 Wipeout e-voucher initiative in May to encourage diners to support restaurants and help proprietors with cashflow. The campaign generated more than HK$1.5 million in revenue for participating restaurants in 30 days.

“The 2020 Wipeout campaign was a simple proposition: support your favourite restaurants by purchasing a voucher to use at a later date, and in return the cash value of your voucher will be 20-50 per cent more than what you paid,” a Tatler article explained.

More recently, the new Wipeout 2.0 campaign ran from August to September in an effort to arrest the industry’s freefall after a third wave of infections.

The Alliance also lobbied Chief Executive Carrie Lam and Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-Chung to help save the industry by, among other things, incentivising landlords to grant rent relief or reductions.

Encompassing 600 restaurants that employ around 10,000 people, the Save Hong Kong F&B Alliance is improving prospects for the venues and people that make Hong Kong a foodies’ paradise.