MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee Foods Corp. is taking a bite of the Liverpool and Texas markets in the United Kingdom and United States, respectively, despite the COVID-19 pandemic that has rampaged across the globe.
Jollibee opened its first stores in Liverpool on Sept. 3 and in the Greater Dallas Area in West Plano, Texas on Aug. 20, with Filipinos and other nationalities among the first customers in the long queues.
The Liverpool opening achieved double its initial sales forecast, while the West Plano location also exceeded its target and served close to 2,000 customers on its opening day.
Jollibee Group CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong said Jollibee continues to grow in both North America and Europe.
“In North America, the Jollibee brand is seeing double-digit growth, with our Chowking and Red Ribbon brands also performing well. Smashburger’s company-owned stores have also seen double-digit growth for the past four months. The digital pivot has driven off-premise channels like delivery, drive-thru, and take-out to a higher level, enabling our brands to outperform the QSR industry in the US,” he said.
Moving forward, JFC will continue to expand and will open in Leicester before the end of 2020.
“We remain on track to have 50 restaurants in the next three to five years,” Tanmantiong said.
Jollibee’s Liverpool location features exclusive menu items catering to its local UK consumers, including Asian Slaw, Tropical Burger, Mango Coconut Sundae, and Asian Chicken Tender Rice Bowl.
The first store in the Greater Dallas and North Texas area marks the brand’s 45th store in the US, while the Liverpool location marks the third in Europe.
At present, the Jollibee Group operates in 35 countries, with over 5,800 stores globally with branches in the Philippines, United States, Canada, People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), United Kingdom, Italy, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, Panama, and Malaysia.
It has eight wholly-owned brands namely Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Yonghe King, Hong Zhuang Yuan, Smashburger; three franchised brands Burger King and Panda Express in the Philippines, Dunkin’ Donuts in certain territories in China and has 80 percent ownership of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf,and 60 percent ownership in the SuperFoods Group that owns Highlands Coffee and PHO24 brands.
Jollibee Group also has investments in Titan Dining LP, the holding entity of Tim Ho Wan Pte. Ltd., which is the master franchisee of Tim Ho Wan in the Asia Pacific region excluding Hong Kong.