South-East Asia Destination

By: Christine Layug
One of the most recognized fast-food restaurant in the Philippines today is Jollibee. Jollibee, along with McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's, are some of the restaurants that Filipinos commonly go to when they are craving for some authentic all-American cheese burger and fries. But when Filipinos are craving for some all-Filipino-American style fast-food like spaghetti, burgers, and Palabok, then Jollibee philippine is the only restaurant for the job.

For years, Jollibee as served every Filipino favorites all over the country such as the ever so popular Palabok, popular Filipino breakfasts such as Tocino, Longganisa, Beef Tapa, and authentic Filipino soups like Macaroni Soup and La Paz Batchoy. American-style fast-food includes burgers, pastas, fries, ice creams, hotdog sandwiches, and more.

Although Jollibee is now known for its American and Filipino style fast-food menus today, Jollibee philippine was once before an icecream parlor that serves Magnolia ice creams rom Bankerohan, Davao City to Cubao in 1975. This was the very first chain opened to the public with Jolibee as the original name.

Sometime in 1978, Caktiong and his brothers and sisters, being partners, engaged the services of a management consultant in the person of Manuel C. Lumba. Consultant Lumba shifted the business focus from ice cream to hamburgers, after his studies showed that a much larger market was waiting to be exploited. Their burgers were popular and became in-demand in no time. From this came a success that propelled the business forward to its success.

Lumba became Caktiong's first business and management mentor. Lumba next re-formed the name Jolibe to Jolly Bee and made the two words form a single name Jollibee, but changed the "y" to an "i". The Jollibee mascot was then conceptualized by Lumba which was inspired by local and foreign children's books.

Lumba next created the product name "Yumburger" for their burgers as well as the name "ChickEnjoy" for their deep fried chickens. He then had the company incorporated in order to benefit from incorporation and leased a house on Main St. in Cubao, Quezon City as the first headquarters.

Caktiong stressed that developing internal strengths was critical. The stores were re-designed, the service transformed into a full self-service, fast-food operation with drive thrus. Not long after, Caktiong and Lumba went on an observation tour in the United States, attended food service and equipment conventions. Caktiong placed Lumba in charge of franchise development.

From a humble starting, Jollibee became one of the biggest fast-food chains around the world. From their expansions and acquisitions, Jollibee philippine now as 1,466 stores in the Philippines namely, Jollibee (627), Chowking (377), Greenwich Pizza (236), Red Ribbon Bakeshop (194), Délifrance (28) and Manong Pepe's (4).

Christine Layug writes articles for Philippine Online Shopping Site, Express Regalo - http://www.expressregalo.com.