MANILA, Philippines — Homegrown fast-food chain Jollibee is assured that it could win the fast service restaurant (QSR) battle within the North American market which is at the moment dominated by business giants comparable to McDonald’s, KFC and Popeyes.
Jollibee Meals Corp. (JFC) chief monetary and danger officer Richard Shin stated the group’s flagship Jollibee model managed to document a 6.4 p.c identical retailer gross sales progress within the first quarter in North America regardless of a softness out there’s QSR section in the course of the interval.
“I believe we’ve got to be clear and say that we’re not the largest participant in North America. So a few of these large names, like Popeyes, KFCs, have much more shops. So when this kind of macro or shopper sentiment softness occurs and so forth, these bigger corporations are inclined to have extra challenges,” Shin stated.
“For us, we had progress. We had excessive single digit progress in North America, once more, coming from a smaller base,” he stated.
Jollibee closed the primary quarter with a complete of 1,779 shops globally, 1,293 of that are within the Philippines.
In North America, the model has 104 shops.
Early final 12 months, JFC opened the a hundredth Jollibee retailer in North America, positioned in Strawberry Hill, British Columbia, Canada.
“So sure, North America, we’ve seen superb outcomes. We hope to proceed to do that after all, as we get larger and scale up as properly,” Shin stated.
“However I believe the purpose right here is Jollibee is a model that’s catching consideration, that’s getting some love and we’re getting voted by shoppers and different opinion leaders as a very excellent product. So I believe it begins with the style and the product. Our worth positioning is, after all, superb, and it’s only a very pretty model that individuals need to get behind. So we’re very blessed with that,” he stated.
Shin earlier stated that on prime of defending its power in its dwelling nation of the Philippines, JFC goals to have the ability to get a good-sized scale enterprise within the US for each the QSR section in addition to the very massive space of beverage, which for the group is espresso and tea.
“The opposite large model, after all, is CBTL (The Espresso Bean and Tea Leaf). We solely have 200 cafes, principally in California, however we’re very actively seeking to broaden our footprint. So we’re taking a look at progress once more, in each the place we’re, but additionally probably in new states throughout the US,” Shin stated.
“So I assume, the underlying theme for us is such a giant QSR marketplace for each meals and beverage. In reality, the world’s largest QSR market. And so for us, being comparatively small in comparison with all these large gamers, we’ve got nowhere else to go however develop,” he stated.