Tony Tan Caktiongs Life and his Jollibee company is another rags to riches story of an entrepreneur that

truly inspires everyone. Tony was the third of seven siblings born to poor parents who migrated from the
Fujian province in China to look for a better life here in the Philippines. His father began as a chef in a
Chinese Temple. Not later on his father was invited to open a restaurant business in Davao so the whole
family moved south. All together, they helped one another in managing the restaurant business which in
turn became profitable. This allowed young Tony to return back to Manila and pursue his course
Chemical Engineering at the University of Santo Tomas (UST).

In 1975, Tony and his colleagues went on a visit to a Magnolia Ice Cream plant located in Quezon City
and learned that it was offering franchise when he saw a poster for it. By the month of May, with his
family savings, he took P350,000 to grab the franchise opportunity and opened two Magnolia ice cream
parlors named Cubao Ice Cream House located near the Coronet Theater, and Quiapo Ice Cream House
located beside the bridge the one going to ilalim near a Mercury Drug outlet. They all worked hands-
on but as the business propels, they noticed they could not do it all so they started to set up an
organization hired store managers, and trained people.

Tony started with just two ice cream. Then after two years, he offered chicken and hamburger
sandwiches, because customers were telling them they didnt want to be eating ice cream all the time.
They prepared the food in the back kitchen, and soon noticed that people were lining up more for
hamburgers than for ice cream. Then in 1978, when they already had six ice cream parlors, they asked
themselves: Why dont we change into a hamburger house?

That was also the time they decided to incorporate and realized thet they needed a brand name. They
were looking for a symbol that would represent the group, and because Tony was very impressed with
Disneyland characters, they decided on a bee. The bee is a busy creature that produces honey one of
lifes sweetest things. They thought it would be a very good symbol to represent everybody. They
decided they would all be very busy and happy at the same time, because if they were busy but not
happy, it wouldnt be worth it. Thats why they put the word jolly and just changed the y into i to
form a brand name JOLLIBEE.

It wasnt long before we heard that the multinationals were coming in including McDonalds. Friends
started asking us if we were going to get a McDonalds franchise but I remember saying, if you franchise,
you cant grow outside the Philippines, says Tony.

McDonalds came in 1982, but they didnt feel threatened because they were a little nave and Jollibee
was doing very well. They found McDonalds to be very good at everything, but it didnt know the local
culture. They knew the Filipinos taste buds and what he liked in food, so they offered him flavorful and
good-tasting products. He likes pasta, so they started offering spaghetti. He likes chicken, so they came
up with good fried chicken by mixing different flavors. They also knew something important all along:
Filipino taste is sweet. This is very Filipino very Asian. He said: If we eat anything sweet; we dont
really think its sweet; but try giving it to a foreigner and theyd be surprised.

Tony narrates: Filipinos also like to smell their food before they eat it. They want to be sure it smells
delicious before they take a bite. Sometimes they would open a kettle and say, whats this? It smells
good! This was proved by the Langhap-Sarap advertising campaign by Basic [Footcone and Belding]. They
did it for us initially for the hamburger, and when it became successful, we started using it as a campaign
slogan for the other products.

It didnt take them long to introduce new products when they were starting out. The family members
would discuss what new products customers would like, and without much marketing theyd bring
something out like spaghetti. Tonys sister is also a good cook, so she would come up with a new
recipe, they would comment on it, and then shed fix the recipe before they started offering it. Before, it
was simple. Now, theres a formal structure. Theres a big Research and Development (R&D) department
and a marketing department. The marketing department gets inputs from customers and the products
they like, and then communicate that to R&D. R&D then develops it. We have an internal taste panel that
taste the food and comment on it, and when a formulation is needed they do it. The next step is a
consumer panel test. We have the product taste-tested by consumers, and if its okay, we test the
product in a few stores. Before it was easy, but now it takes three to six months to roll out a new
product. Another time-consuming process is training our people on how to prepare and serve the new
product. says Tony.

Jollibee group has also become bigger. Now they have Chowking, Greenwich, Delifrance, and the
recently acquired Red Ribbon. Greenwich pizza started as an over-the-counter pizza store at the
Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan, Metro Manila, in 1971. One time, the founder approached Tony
to ask if they were interested at that time she has 50 kiosks and having difficulty managing the
business when she asked them if they were interested, Tony said, why not? Lets form a joint venture.
They took over the management in 1994, but they retained the taste of her products because it suits the
local market. On the other hand, they took over Chowking in 2000 because Chinese food is also very
popular among Filipinos, but there was no good company serving the market. So they took over and
worked on it