Former President Donald Trump’s social media post earlier in the week asking his supporters to give Anheuser-Busch a “second chance” came after Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White personally asked him to back the beer company, a person familiar with the situation told CNBC.

Anheuser-Busch last year suffered a major backlash over its Bud Light marketing promotion with a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney.

White, whose UFC is the leading mixed martial arts promotion company, reached out directly to Trump to encourage positive commentary about Anheuser-Busch, according to the person.

In his Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump appeared to be well-informed about detailed aspects of the beverage company’s operations.

He noted that the company spends $700 million a year “with our GREAT Farmers,” employs 65,000 Americans and has provided scholarships to families of fallen members of the military. Trump wrote, “Anheuser-Busch is a GREAT American brand that perhaps deserves a Second Chance?”

UFC, which is owned by TKO Group Holdings, in October announced a partnership with Anheuser-Busch to make Bud Light the official beer partner of the mixed martial arts company, in a deal that was reported at the time to be worth $100 million.

In a press release announcing the deal, White said, “There are many reasons why I chose to go with Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light, most importantly because I feel we are very aligned when it comes to our core values and what the UFC brand stands for.”

A spokesman for UFC declined to comment on White’s conversation with Trump. A spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch did not respond to a request for comment.

In his social media post on Tuesday, Trump threatened to release a list of companies — other than Anheuser-Busch — that he considers to be “woke.”

“Am building a list, and might just release it for the World to see,” Trump wrote. His followers, Trump suggested, should be “going after those companies that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA!”

Those comments came after Trump in a social media post on Sunday was much more critical of the company, saying: “the Bud Light ad will go down as the WORST AD in history.”

“In a matter of minutes 30 billion dollars worth of market cap simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Will they ever get it back? Who knows, but what a mess!” Trump wrote.

Trump, who is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, attended UFC’s Dec. 16 event in Las Vegas, where he walked out into the audience with White and the musical artist Kid Rock.

Trump had attended two other UFC events previously in 2023 and had been at other of the promoter’s events in prior years.

The Singapore coffee market is already crowded, but brands continue to open new locations in the city-state in hopes success on the island will kickstart international expansions.

In the last few months, at least five players – China’s Luckin Coffee, Indonesia’s Kenangan Coffee and Fore Coffee, Canada’s Tim Hortons and Taiwanese specialty coffee chain Louisa Coffee have set up shop in Singapore.

Singapore was Luckin’s first major push outside of China, opening 30 outlets since March, according to a CNBC check. Kenangan Coffee has opened four stores since its September arrival while Tim Hortons has two outlets and Fore Coffee and Louisa Coffee each have one outlet.

“We have a pretty grand ambition for our international expansion. We do believe that Singapore and Malaysia are just a stepping stone. And we want to expand to a lot more countries than where we are today,” Edward Tirtanata, co-founder and CEO of Kopi Kenangan, a leading grab-and-go coffee chain in Indonesia, told CNBC.

Launched in 2017, Kopi Kenangan operates more than 800 stores across 45 cities in Indonesia and 22 stores across Malaysia.

Known as Kenangan Coffee in Singapore, the brand has opened outlets at Changi Airport Terminal 2, Jewel Changi Airport mall, as well as Raffles City Shopping Centre and Takashimaya Shopping Centre — all locations that typically feature upscale brands and goods.

“There’s no better country than Singapore to jumpstart our global expansion plan. Why? Singapore is a definite hub of Southeast Asia. [People] all over Southeast Asia fly to Singapore, simply just to transit, to travel or do business,” said Tirtanata of Kopi Kenangan.

“Therefore, we do believe that with a successful entry into Singapore, we will be able to propel our brand further as we expand to more and more countries.”

Singapore’s prominence as a global financial hub has attracted coffee brands to the country.

“It’s one of these things where if you have a restaurant chain, you want to open in New York City, in London,” said Peng T. Ong, co-founder and managing partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures.

“I think they’re here in Singapore because we are a financial center. And they want their future investors to know about us,” said Ong.

“It gives them, especially venture-funded ones, very good visibility for international investors,” said Jianggan Li, founder and CEO of tech research firm Momentum Works.

Luckin Coffee declined to comment, saying that it is “still a beginner” in the overseas market. It overtook Starbucks as the largest coffee chain in China this year.

A Starbucks spokesperson told CNBC: “We welcome competition because it expands the coffee market and accelerates adoption and vacancy of coffee consumption.”

Singaporeans of all ages, genders and income levels love coffee. A July 2022 survey conducted in Singapore revealed that nearly 55% of respondents said they bought coffee in the week prior to the survey.

This compares to the wider Asia-Pacific region which has the lowest per capita consumption of coffee in the world, a Euromonitor International study revealed. The report also noted that coffee consumption is growing slowly as the dominant instant coffee category is mature.

The world’s largest coffee chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts already have well established footprints in Singapore.

Starbucks has more than 140 stores in Singapore while The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has more than 70 outlets and homegrown chain Huggs has 20, according to their websites.

There’s plenty of local competition too. Singapore’s Housing and Development Board said in May there are 776 coffee shops located in residential areas or neighborhood shop houses.

Many international coffee chains open locations in upscale malls and commercial areas. Their prices also tend to be higher than local options.

A cup of cold brew coffee from Starbucks costs about 6.30 Singapore dollars ($4.73). A cup of black coffee at a local coffee shop retails for SG$1.20 Singapore dollars on average, according to CEIC data.

According to data from Momentum Works that accounted for cost of living and disposable income in key global cities, Starbucks is seen as less premium in Singapore. This gives Singapore “a broader base for international brands.”

“If you sell coffee for SG$4 or SG$5, I don’t think people will have problems paying that amount of money,” said Li of Momentum Works.

“The question is how big you want to become in Singapore? But I think everybody knows that they can’t become too big in Singapore, but having Singapore as a market is relatively easy to to operate,” said Li.

Singapore has retained its lead as the world’s best business environment for the next five years, thanks to factors such as economic and political stability, according to Economist Intelligence Unit’s rankings for the second quarter of 2023.

Singapore-headquartered food delivery service Foodpanda on Friday confirmed to CNBC that it is conducting its latest round of layoffs as the need to be “more agile remains critical.”

“Our company priority right now is to become leaner, more efficient and even more agile. To do this, we need to streamline our operations so we can take on a more structured approach for the coming days,” Jakob Sebastian Angele, APAC CEO of Foodpanda, said in a letter shared with employees seen by CNBC.

He did not mention the number of employees impacted nor departments affected.

This is Foodpanda’s third round of layoffs since job cuts in February and September last year amid macroeconomic headwinds, according to media reports. Grab and Deliveroo have also reduced headcount this year.

“While we already implemented some measures earlier this year, there is more we have to do to create the right set-up for our operations,” said Angele.

Those measures include reviewing organizational structure across both regional and country teams as well as shifting some functional reporting lines into different leaders for more consistency and focus, said Angele.

The layoffs come as Foodpanda parent Delivery Hero is in preliminary discussions with potential buyers to sell part of its Southeast Asian food delivery business, the Berlin-based company confirmed with CNBC.

On Wednesday, German media outlet WirtschaftsWoche reported that Delivery Hero is selling its operations under the Foodpanda brand in Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Laos.

“Delivery Hero confirms negotiations with several parties regarding a potential sale of its foodpanda business in selected Southeast Asia markets. Any discussions or plans are in their preliminary stages,” the firm told CNBC in an email, without mentioning specific markets.

The German media report also said that competitor Grab could be a buyer. When CNBC reached out, Grab declined to comment on the matter.

“Grab’s competitors whether Gojek or Foodpanda are losing market share. Grab is gaining market share in deliveries from Foodpanda who might even exit few markets in due course. Foodpanda is dis-advantaged due to its stand-alone delivery model,” said Sachin Mittal, head of telecom, media and technology research at DBS Bank, in a Sept. 21 note.

Grab is the leader in Southeast Asia’s food delivery market, holding 54% of the region’s gross merchandize value in 2022, while Foodpanda captured 19% and Gojek held 12%, according to a report from tech research firm Momentum Works.

Food delivery players are trying to stay afloat amid economic headwinds. Grab slashed costs in the past few quarters as the firm focused on profitability. Delivery Hero previously said that its “focus remains on our long term commitment to building a sustainable, profitable business.”

Delivery Hero has yet to become profitable since its inception in 2011. For the first half of 2023, Delivery Hero reported a net loss of 832.3 million euros ($886.9 million), compared with a loss of 1.495 billion euros a year prior.

Jonathan Woo, senior research analyst at Phillip Securities Research, said that Foodpanda potentially selling Southeast Asia businesses is “typical market consolidation after intense competition, especially as scrutiny over profitability intensifies.”

“Only a few market players — Grab, GoTo — in Southeast Asia could buy out Foodpanda,” said Woo, adding that such an acquisition would be “most appealing to Grab” which is more entrenched in the region compared to GoTo or Deliveroo.

GoTo is the combined company following a merger between Indonesia’s Gojek, which operates ride-hailing and food delivery businesses, and e-commerce giant Tokopedia.

In December 2021, Foodpanda announced it would scale down operations in Germany and exit the Japan market. Both Foodpanda and Grab have expanded to dine-in services as consumers resume their daily routines and go out and dine in more frequently.

Meituan‘s Hong Kong-listed shares fell more than 5% on Friday after CEO Wang Xing warned of a food delivery slowdown in the next quarter.

“For our food delivery, we expect the third quarter or the volume will slow down, but still be more resilient than other consumption-related sectors,” Wang said during the earnings call on Thursday.

On Thursday, Meituan posted strong second-quarter results.

Revenue was 67.96 billion Chinese yuan ($9.33 billion), up 33.4% from 50.93 billion yuan posted in the same period a year ago. The firm also swung to profit of 4.69 billion Chinese yuan for the second quarter, compared to a loss of 1.11 billion Chinese yuan a year ago.

“We have seen some short-term headwinds due to macro economy and extreme weather conditions.”

Regions such as Beijing, Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi and Henan experienced extreme rain in July, causing widespread flooding. Typhoon Doksuri swept north after ravaging southern Chinese provinces.

“Extreme weather brings challenges to our business. Many merchants had to suspend their business, while consumers chose to stock packaged food instead of ordering fresh food delivery. In some cities, food delivery was even suspended in order to ensure safety,” said Wang.

Meituan leads China’s food delivery market, holding almost 70% of the market share in the mainland, according to a 2022 report on Meituan.

Besides food delivery, the tech firm also operates various services including ride-hailing, on-demand delivery, hotel and travel booking, movie ticketing, entertainment and lifestyle services.

Xiaolin Chen, head of international at KraneShares, is bullish on Meituan.

The investment firm has a price target of 205 Hong Kong dollars ($26.14) on the stock, which represents a 35.2% upside from the current price of HK$132.80.

“They literally gained a lot of market share during [the pandemic]. They managed to grab lower tier cities and I believe [that] kind of market share will become sticky with them,” Chen told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.

Wang said consumers will likely dine out more as the economy recovers, which could lead to a lower demand for food delivery.

“So far in third quarter, offline traffic and travel demand continue to recover rapidly. Consumers’ pent-up demand for offline consumption is further released, and this will lead to a temporary squeeze on food delivery transactions as people go out more often,” said Wang.

Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings still expects China’s gross domestic product to grow 5.6% in 2023 as the economy normalizes following very weak consumption growth last year, according to a July report. This is slightly higher than the Chinese government’s growth target of around 5%.

Meituan’s CEO said he remains confident of long-term growth in its food delivery business.

“Order volume in Q3 last year was a relatively high base, but we think a temporary slowdown in order volume growth is due to external factors,” said Wang. “We will continue to activate our product and operational strategy to better capture the demand and stimulate the recovery.”

Meituan is also deploying autonomous delivery vehicles which have been “more widely applied in more scenarios,” said Wang.

Chinese self-driving car firm Pony.ai announced in March that it is partnering Meituan to build unmanned vehicles for food delivery services.

Chen said that leveraging artificial intelligence tech in food delivery is key to “improving costs and services for clients.”

“We will leverage our proprietary research and external investment to explore the use of AI and autonomous delivery and other cutting edge technologies,” said Wang.

In May, Meituan rolled out a sister app in Hong Kong, as it looks for new markets outside of mainland China.

Thailand, the world’s second largest exporter of rice, is encouraging its farmers to plant less of the crop in a bid to save water — a move that could roil rice markets further following India’s export ban.

Thailand is facing a spate of low rainfall. In an effort to conserve water for consumption, the Office of the National Water Resources (ONWR) has called on the country’s farmers to turn to “planting crops that use less water [which] can be harvested quickly.”

“The cumulative rainfall is about 40% less than normal, which is at high risk of water shortage,” secretary-general of the ONWR, Surasri Kidtimonton, said in a statement released by Thailand’s National Water Administration.

Kidtimonton said the country’s water management needs to “focus on water for consumption,” as well as “water for cultivation mainly for perennial crops.”

Perennial crops are crops that grow back after harvest and need not be replanted every year, unlike annual crops. Rice is categorized as an annual crop.

For every kilogram of rough rice grown, an average of 2,500 liters of water is needed. In comparison, alternative crops like millets require between 650 to 1,200 liters of water for the same amount harvested.

Just last month, India banned exports of non-basmati white rice, a move aimed at ensuring “adequate availability” in domestic markets, the government said.

India is the world’s leading rice exporter and accounts for 40% of global rice trade, and the ban is expected to affect millions.

“Global rice price will have the potential to increase further in the event that rice production in Thailand decreases significantly year on year,” Rabobank’s senior analyst Oscar Tjakra told CNBC.

However, it still remains to be seen whether Thai farmers will follow the directive, said Tjakra.

“Thai farmers might still choose to plant rice on the back of the current high global rice export prices environment,” he said.

Rice prices are already hovering at decade highs, in part due to tighter supplies when the staple became an attractive alternative as prices of other major grains surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Thailand often pushes for water conservation, but it has little effect on the use of water as the water rights system has yet to be developed,” said Jeremy Zwinger, CEO of The Rice Trader told CNBC in an e-mail.

Extreme weather conditions brought on by an approaching El Nino are fueling concerns that robusta beans in major coffee producers like Vietnam and Indonesia could be hit, resulting in soaring prices.

“The now widely-expected transition to El Nino conditions in Q323 has stoked fears of reduced output in Vietnam and Indonesia, both major coffee robusta producers,” Fitch Solutions’ research unit BMI said in report dated May 24.

Robusta beans are known for their bitter characteristics and higher acidity, containing more caffeine than their premium and pricier arabica counterpart.

Brazil’s robusta crop has also been negatively impacted by drought as well, the report said.

That means the cost of instant coffee and espressos, which are often made with robusta beans, could come under pressure amid supply worries and a stronger than usual demand for robusta as consumers turn to cheaper substitutes for arabica.

El Nino is a weather phenomenon that typically brings hotter and drier than usual conditions to the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Climate scientists are predicting that this year’s El Nino could descend in the second half of 2023. 

Southeast Asia recently saw record-breaking heat in the middle of May.

“Across Southeast Asia, El Niño conditions are associated with below-average rainfall and higher temperatures, both of which depress coffee production,” the BMI report said.

Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil are the largest producers of robusta, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

“We draw attention to heavy rains in Indonesia through Q123, which have had a negative impact on coffee bean quality, with the USDA forecasting a decline of about one fifth in coffee robusta production,” the analysts said.

Carlos Mera, head of agri commodities markets at Rabobank, is forecasting a 10% drop in production to 11.2 million bags of robusta in the coming crop harvest.

In 2016, El Nino-related water shortages in both Vietnam and Indonesia led to a global production decline of close to 10%, according to the research unit’s statistics.

Typically, in an El Nino year, it is “not uncommon” for Vietnam and Indonesia to “see a 20% decline in production” in robusta beans, Shawn Hackett, president of commodity brokerage firm Hackett Financial Advisors, told CNBC.

“That would mean a pretty severe contraction of robusta,” he said.

Robusta beans account for 40% of the world’s coffee production, and arabica beans make up the remaining 60% of global coffee production. Arabica beans are usually deemed to be of higher quality and command higher prices than robusta coffee.

However, global economic pressures are tipping demand toward robusta, the underdog of coffee beans.

Robusta prices are supported as coffee-product manufacturers and consumers substitute robusta beans for pricier arabica beans to save costs during inflationary times, the BMI report said.

Robusta coffee prices recently soared to a 15-year high of $2,783 per ton toward the end of May. They last traded at $2,608 per ton for July futures, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange.

Additionally, the premium that arabica beans have over robusta beans plunged to the lowest since 2019 due to soaring demand for the relatively cheaper coffee bean.

“Asia, generally speaking, has taken a liking to robusta more so than arabica, and as such the demand for robusta is growing at a much faster rate than demand for arabica,” said Hackett.

He cited the lower price point of robusta beans in Asia and the population’s palette for robusta-bean based drinks. 

Kopi, also known as Nanyang coffee, is a dark coffee beverage popular in Southeast Asia that’s traditionally brewed using robusta beans.

But Asia is not the only region that has taken an increased liking to robusta.

“While the reduction in washed arabica imports is partially due to lower availability … the shift to robusta shows that cheaper coffees are being heavily preferred by the European market,” said Natalia Gandolphi, analyst at HedgePoint Global Markets’ Intelligence.

Gandolphi said she expects a deficit of 4.16 million bags of robusta for the October 2023 to September 2024 period.