Jollibee, Dutch non-profit partnership bearing fruits

MANILA, Philippines — The Jollibee Group’s partnership with a Dutch non-profit volunteer organization has borne fruit in terms of enabling farmers improve productivity and lower production costs.

The Jollibee Group, through its social development arm Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF), has partnered with PUM Netherlands to provide Farmer Entrepreneurship Program (FEP) farmer groups with practical knowledge on soil health and fertilizer management.

PUM Netherlands supports small businesses in developing countries to help enhance the farmers’ productivity, efficiency, market competitiveness and sustainable growth.

The collaboration sought to empower farmers, improve their livelihood and enhance their productivity through knowledge sharing, upskilling and agri-innovation as aligned with the Jollibee Group’s sustainability agenda.

Since the partnership started seven years ago, PUM Netherlands has shared various agri-innovation techniques and practical technologies that have changed how the FEP farmers approach agriculture and helped JGF identify possible interventions.

“While we can see that access to market and financing are already providing the farmers with better income, the way to sustain their profit is by having access to modern technologies and skills that can further improve their yield and sustainable farming practice while lowering their production costs,” JGF president Gisela Tiongson said.

From 2019 to 2024, JGF and PUM have organized four advise-on-location missions and four remote-coaching sessions.

JGF said that over 500 FEP farmers have benefitted from the partnership.

“After the sessions, farmers learned reliable and optimized fertilizer usage for soil health regeneration. They also gained vital knowledge on proper pest and disease identification to manage pests effectively without overly relying on synthetic inputs and harmful chemicals,” JGF said.

“In turn, the environmentally friendly practices have allowed the farmers to grow healthier and higher-quality crops for their institutional clients like Jollibee Group,” it said.

The Jollibee Group is an Asian food conglomerate with a global store network of 9,598 composed of 3,340 stores in the Philippines and 6,258 abroad, as of end- September 2024.

Its largest brands by store outlets worldwide are Jollibee, CBTL, Highlands Coffee and Chowking.