Singaporean brands used to thrive in China. Today, they are fighting for survival.
For nearly two decades, the Singaporean brand in China’s shopping mall has been projecting “quality,” “cleanliness,” “reliability”—a halo effect so powerful that brands like BreadTalk, Jumbo Seafood, Toast Box and Food Republic can set up real estate in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu and watch the country’s rising middle class come to them as China’s consumption wave rises.
However, the allure of “Singapore quality” has faded, and that golden age is over.
Food Republic closed its last location in Beijing on Jun 15, 2026. Its parent company, BreadTalk, had already completely pulled out of the capital at the end of Mar, down from 460 stores in China at its peak to around 200 today.
Jumbo Seafood plans to close its stores across China and consolidate its operations in Shanghai. The song Fa Bak Kut Teh has already made a similar move, having been released in other Chinese cities; its only remaining location in the country is also located in Shanghai.
Clearly, Singapore F&B’s retreat from China is not just a one-of-a-kind failure, but rather a structural reckoning, and the story of what comes next is just beginning.
The golden age of Singapore brands in China
In the early 2000s, “Singapore quality” was seen as a real competitive advantage in China.
As China’s income grew and the middle class expanded, there was a real desire for international food items that felt premium but were affordable.
The Singaporean heritage of vendors, such as bak kut teh, crab, kaya toast, offers middle-class Chinese familiar Asian flavors with an international pedigree.
BreadTalk was a pioneer among Singaporean businesses in expanding overseas in China. Founded in Singapore in 2000 by George Quek, the group grew to nearly 1,000 in 17 countries at its peak, with China being its largest market.
Jumbo said it supplied 1.6 tonnes of crab per day to its three Shanghai locations in 2017. Song Fa, Putien, Paradise Group, and Toast Box all expanded into first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, and, due to success, advanced to second-tier cities such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Hangzhou.
For almost two decades, the aura of “Singapore quality” worked in China—until 2023.
What broke the beast
The shift was not a single event but several overlapping shifts that fundamentally changed what Chinese consumers want and who they are willing to pay for.
First, consumer spending has contracted significantly over the years. China’s property market slump has eroded the fortunes of the middle class, while youth unemployment hit a record high in 2023. As a result, the much-anticipated spending that once fueled luxury food has fallen sharply.
Those who had more wealth also did not spend as much money as before. Jumbo Group CEO Ang Kiam Meng told Lianhe Zaobao that consumer confidence is a key issue and that the CCP’s “eight-point rules” restricting the use of corporate entertainment have hit the entire mid- to high-end F&B space.
Jumbo Group’s financials show that of the total revenue of S$178.8 million in 2023, China revenue was S$26.1 million, but fell by 27.6% to S$18.9 million in FY2024 and S$18.3 million in FY2025.
Second, it is important to acknowledge that local Chinese brands have become world-class competitors. While Singaporean operators are managing existing stores, Chinese competitors have been investing in R&D and digital marketing, building social media platforms on Douyin, and entering food delivery platforms like Meituan with aggressive discounts, building a loyal online and physical following that Singaporean brands find hard to match.
Putien’s China general manager, Ling Ling Kong, noted that the market is now increasingly concentrated among popular online brands, making it difficult for high-end restaurants to attract new customers.
BreadTalk’s own spokesperson admitted that the rapid expansion of Chinese brands, coupled with the growing importance of food delivery and e-commerce platforms, has reshaped the entire competitive landscape.
Underlying all this was the diminution of Singapore’s own premium. Jianggan Li, CEO of Consultancy Momentum Works, explained that “the source of foreign products, including that of Singapore, has moved from a competitive position to one of knowledge.”
Chinese consumers today care about product quality, whether prices are reasonable, and whether the experience is worth sharing online. The brand from Singapore no longer moves the needle the way it once did.
As such, with the added pressure of higher rents in core commercial districts and the cost of higher quality ingredients, shrinking profit margins have become a reality across the industry, including Singapore businesses.
China is not the end of the game
Since about 2023, most of Singapore’s brands have been quietly integrating—and now, Shanghai has become the last operating city for almost all of them, but even then, the competitive environment is fierce.
BreadTalk took a major dive, contracting from 460 Chinese stores to about 200 while Food Republic kept the remaining four Shanghai locations, and focused on a new growth path in the operation of school and corporate kitchens. The group’s sights are now firmly set on a S$1 billion revenue target by 2029, built on its bakeries in Singapore and Thailand and its franchise rights at Din Tai Fung.
BreadTalk still operates in 14 global markets.
Jumbo is making a similar pivot, foreseeing the closure of six restaurants in six Chinese cities to focus on Shanghai while betting on a different kind of growth at home: a new S$10 million Tai Seng headquarters with a dedicated catering kitchen and a new site, Jumbo Catering Services, with Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City next on the list.
On the other hand, Jumbo still has stores in South Korea, Thailand, and Cambodia, maintaining its overseas footprint to include more than just China.
This international expansion operates on the assumption that Asian markets offer growing middle classes, familiarity with Singapore’s culture and cuisine, and less fierce competition than China.
Song Fa, on the other hand, has drawn a quiet line under its China-wide ambitions, reaching just one outlet in Shanghai while also focusing on Singapore and tourist destinations such as Jewel Changi Airport.
In all these regressions, Putien is an outsider, a conservative. By consolidating its presence in China from 20 to 30 locations from the beginning and holding 27 today, it did not expand much, and that behavior now looks like it will bear fruit since it did not expose the company badly in the first place.
What stands out is that none of these companies fail.
Jumbo’s revenue for the first half of 2025 grew by 7.9% to S$105 million, driven by Singapore operations, while BreadTalk hit nearly S$600 million in 2023 revenue. Companies are restructuring, instead of falling, shedding China exposure that has been reducing profits and doubling down on markets where they still have real profits.
The hard question is what happens when those alternatives face the same pressures.
China is now coming here
As Singaporean F&B brands retreat from China, Chinese F&B brands are also flooding into Singapore at an unprecedented pace.
About 85 Chinese F&B brands were operating about 405 stores in Singapore as of Aug 2025, more than double the 32 brands operating 184 stores a year ago, according to data from Inside Retail.
Chagee, Mixue, Tai Er, Nong Geng Ji – brands that Singaporeans now see in every supermarket – are using Singapore as a starting point for major expansion, using the city’s regulatory transparency, international reputation, and diverse consumer base to validate their ideas before moving to wider Southeast Asia.
There’s a temptation to put this as China getting tough, so Singaporean F&Bs are coming home. But home is not a soft place either.
Singapore’s F&B sector recorded more than 3,000 store closures in 2024—the highest in almost two decades—and closures continued at about 300 every month until 2025.
A format that is struggling in China is also struggling in Singapore.
This reveals a more nuanced reading of Singaporean businesses than a simple comparison of East- and West-based business environments, and raises the question of where these companies can expect to grow if they continue their old ways in a seemingly foreign retail environment at home.
The dynamic is a direct reversal of what happened in China a decade ago, when Singaporean brands rose sharply in China’s consumer boom.
Now, Chinese brands have stepped in to replace Singapore as the gateway to Southeast Asia and bring capital funding, digital marketing muscle, and operational scale that Singaporean brands have found themselves lacking when competing in China.
A lesson in retreat
Momentum Works’ Li felt that the retreat of Singapore brands in China is not necessarily poor brands, but rather brands that were once successful but failed to keep up with the pace of change in the Chinese market.
The Chinese market has never been short of opportunities, but it is changing very quickly. Many Singapore brands came in, trying to solve consumer needs a decade ago, and found themselves confused when those needs changed.
A restaurateur who has operated a Singaporean restaurant in Beijing for 14 years noted that Singaporean companies were not aggressive enough in gaining market shares, were not well invested in their top teams, and were too slow to adopt digital marketing.
What they lost in China was not only the shops, but also the thinking that being Singapore was enough.
As Li advises: “Singapore brands that can survive in China must provide Singaporean characteristics and experiences that cannot be replaced by other Chinese brands, or fully self-made.”
- Read other articles we’ve written about Singapore businesses here.
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Featured Image Credit: Jumbo Seafood, JonasCN via TripAdvisor
