JOLLIBEE FOUNDER RECOGNIZED
Another Filipino Winner



The elusive Jollibee fastfood chairman, president and CEO Tony Tan Caktiong has been named Ernst & Young's 2004 World Entrepreneur Of The Year (WEOY) at an award ceremony in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He bested 30 other nominees from all over the globe, each of whom has been named Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) in national or regional programs run by Ernst & Young and employ more than 375,000 people and represent approximately 23 billion euros in revenue.

Tony Tan Caktiong built Jollibee from a lowly ice cream parlor in Cubao in 1975 into a fast-food chain of more than 900 stores as of 2003. Between 1993 and 2002, system-wide sales of JFC rose from P4.1 billion to a whopping P26.8 billion. Of the nearly P27-billion sales, 68 percent comes from Jollibee. I have to confess that yours truly has also been a constant patron (more than 20 years now and real proud!!!) of Jollibee, enjoying Chickenjoy more than McChicken.

Jollibee Foods Corporation is comprised of fastfood stores which include 434 Jollibee, 216 Chowking, 193 Greenwich, 28 Delifrance, 21 JB International, two Tomy's Teriyaki in California, and eight Chowking International.

Over the next 10 years, Jollibee hopes to chalk up sales of P100 billion or approximately $17M.

My only wish is that Jollibee takes the initiative of instituting healthy meals ahead of main rival McDonald's. Doing that would really be good news.