The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it is working on a subsidy program to help struggling restaurants reduce the costs charged by third-party food delivery providers during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The ministry yesterday met with representatives of restaurants, night markets and travel agencies, the third meeting it has held in its attempts to assist the affected sectors during the outbreak.
To mitigate the impact of the outbreak, restaurants have been turning to food delivery platforms, such as Uber Eats, Foodpanda and Deliveroo, to boost sales, but the approach comes at a cost — the providers charge commission fees that are 30 to 40 percent the cost of the delivery.
“We are drafting measures to subsidize commission fees as restaurants are suffering,” Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told reporters after the meeting. “They [restaurant owners] have been advised to negotiate with [food delivery platforms] to cut the commission fees. Together with government help, they could save money. The ministry can help with this.”
Restaurants are hoping to at least halve the fees, Shen said.
The owners of food stalls in Taipei’s Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市) have reached an agreement with food delivery platforms to cut the commission to 10 to 30 percent, he said.
The ministry has set up a special budget of NT$160 million (US$5.29 million) to subsidize food delivery fees for about 11,000 small restaurants, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reported yesterday.
The subsidy would be capped at NT$15,000 for each restaurant, the report said.
At the meeting, the ministry was urged to issue “stimulus coupons” as soon as possible to boost consumption, Shen said.
Businesses also urged the government to cut electricity and water rates, as well as taxes, he said.
They also called on the government to temporarily relax the regulations on working hours to help businesses weather the impact of the outbreak, Shen added.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump weighed in on a pressing national issue: The rebranding of a restaurant chain. Last week, Cracker Barrel, a Tennessee company whose nationwide locations lean heavily on a cozy, old-timey aesthetic — “rocking chairs on the porch, a warm fire in the hearth, peg games on the table” — announced it was updating its logo. Uncle Herschel, the man who once appeared next to the letters with a barrel, was gone. It sparked ire on the right, with Donald Trump Jr leading a charge against the rebranding: “WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?!” Later, Trump Sr weighed
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