Singapore’s food and beverage sector has seen a lopsided recovery, with fast food outlets consistently outperforming pre-pandemic benchmarks while full-service restaurants languish below the 2017 baseline. Data from the Department of Statistics’ Food & Beverage Services Index, which tracks chained volume terms against a 2017 index of 100, reveals that between November 2021 and December 2025, the gap between quick-service and dine-in segments widened significantly.
The fast food segment never dipped below the 100 mark except for a single month in February 2025, reaching a peak of 129.83 in December 2022. Over the entire 50-month period, it averaged well above the 2017 baseline. This sustained strength likely reflects a lasting consumer shift toward takeaway, delivery, and convenience meals that accelerated during pandemic restrictions and have since become entrenched.
In contrast, restaurants struggled to regain footing. The restaurant sub-index hit its highest point of 97.54 in December 2021 but then drifted mostly in the 70s and 80s, ending December 2025 at just 80.78. This suggests that formal dining demand, often tied to tourist inflows and corporate entertainment, has not returned to pre-Covid patterns. Cafés, food courts, and other eating places held steadier, fluctuating around the 100 mark and peaking at 104.34 in August 2023, but showed no dramatic gains.
The most dramatic trajectory belongs to food caterers. From a nadir of 32.76 in November 2021—when events were heavily curtailed—the segment steadily climbed, reaching 77.22 by December 2022 and finally touching 99.96 in December 2025. The near-full recovery points to the return of weddings, conferences, and large-scale social functions that drive bulk food provisioning.
Aggregating across all segments, the total F&B services index averaged 92.87 over the period, still 7 percent shy of 2017 volumes. The data, published on Singapore’s open data portal, paints a picture of a sector reshaped by the pandemic, where convenience eating has moved from a niche to the norm, while traditional sit-down dining and event-based catering are only now approaching their former levels.
Source: Singapore Department of Statistics via data.gov.sg · 2026-06-23T09:08:46.705Z
