Food and beverage in the hotel, restaurant and institutions market in Southeast Asia

• The HRI sector is mature (and highly cost-conscious) in Singapore. There were 14,000 outlets in 2006. The restaurant sector dominates, followed by hotels-with-restaurants and fast-food chains. Full service restaurants account for 43 percent of the annual consumer spend on food away from home. There is a growing demand for inexpensive and fast food due to increasingly busy lifestyles.
  
  There are a number of major suppliers covering different sub-sectors such as meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, chilled products, dried food, beverages, dairy products, desserts and dessert mixes and delicatessen products.
• Thailand’s HRI sector has been steadily growing with 171,000 outlets in 2006. An expanding tourism and travel industry is contributing to this rise, as well as an expanding economy and rising affluence. Hotels contributed around half of food service sales. Western-style food outlets, fast-food operations and coffee shops are also expanding.
• Vietnam’s HRI sector is less-developed than other countries in the region, but it is growing. As with other parts of the region, busier lifestyles, tourism and rising incomes are leading to a growing demand for convenience foods. While price is still the most important factor in purchasing, quality is becoming more important. 
• The Indonesian hotel, restaurant and institutional (HRI) sector is extremely diverse, consisting of hotels and restaurants that serve local and international cuisine, fast food outlets, cafés and bars, small restaurants, street-side open air restaurants and street vendors.  Although roadside stalls and kiosks continue to dominate the food service industry, there has been rapid growth in both the demand and supply of Western-style fast-food outlets

Getting your product into market

Tips for Malaysia:

• work with appropriately sized importers and distributors
• food products that have halal certificates have added marketing value
• capitalise on an awareness of New Zealand’s clean green image
• food safety is becoming increasingly important.

Tips for Singapore:

• appoint a capable local distributor
• adopt a group strategy (a network of different product suppliers coming together) to run promotions at hotels and restaurants
• long term establish a presence in the market
• leverage on the clean and green image
• engage and educate local buyers
• restaurants, hotels and institutions usually prefer to deal with local suppliers.

Tips for Thailand:

• demonstrate a key point of differentiation
• concentrate on higher value products
• run ongoing market promotion campaigns
• for small volumes retail chains, hotels and restaurants typically use importers or a consolidator to source and import products.

Tips for Vietnam:

• develop a relationship with an established food trading company working with hotels and restaurants
• visit Vietnam and research the food trading company’s customer lists and achievements
• foreigners are not permitted to import or distribute food in Vietnam

Tips for Indonesia:

• Speaking to Indonesian importers can help to avoid many mistakes as Indonesian regulations, particularly those related to food, are often unclear, confusing and regularly change
• Indonesia is a relationship driven market and it can take 12 months or more to research the market and find potential partners before sales commence