Jollibee aims for 4,000 stores by 2020, accepts DepEd invite to register out-of-school youths

Jollibee Foods Corp. will open the doors of its new store in Singapore not later than March and eyes Indonesia and India as expansion areas while it embarks on a program to increase its network to 4,000 restaurants by the Year 2020.

 

Executives of the country's largest food service network revealed their firm's expansion plans Wednesday as the Jollibee Group Foundation acceded to the invite of Education Secretary Armin Luistro to help the government find and register an estimated 37,000 out-of-school children.

 

The Jollibee store in Singapore is a venture between its wholly-owned subsidiary Golden Plate Pte. Ltd. (GPPL)  and Beeworks Inc., which JFC said “is owned by mostly Singaporean individuals with extensive business experience in the retail and hospitality sector.”  The joint venture agreement was entered into on May 16, 2012. Golden Beeworks incorporated on July 19, 2012. 

 

JFC said GPPL “will be owned 60% by GPPL and 40% by Beeworks.  GPPL will have full management control of the company, while leveraging on Beework’s experience, reputation and network to establish the “Jollibee” brand in Singapore.”

 

As of September 30, 2012 JFC had 541 stores overseas and 2,040 restaurants in the Philippines. 

 

For 2013, the food service giant allocated P5.5 billion for its expansion thrust to add 300 new stores to its network. Last year, it spent P4 billion to grow its network.

Public service  

That vast network of stores nationwide, the Department of Education saw as a way through which it could locate and identify 37,000 streetchildren and homeless youths who are not attending school.

 

During the signing of a memorandum of agreement on the conversion of confiscated illegal logs into armchairs for the public schools, DepEd Secretary Luistro asked the Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF), through its president Grace Tan Caktiong, for help in registering the out of school youths.

 

The JGF president accepted Luistro's invitation and said the foundation will find ways to implement the OSY sign-up at the soonest. Details on implementing the registration of OSYs have yet to be worked out.

 

Luistro said he thought of asking Jollibee for help because street children often gather just outside the premises of the firm's restaurants. In the agreement on the production of armchairs from seized illegal logs, the JGF pledged a P2 million donation so 3,000 armchairs could be produced and distributed to public schools mostly in Metro Manila.

 

The project involves the DepEd, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), whose agency heads were all present at the signing of the agreement.

 

DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said a twinned goal of their joint effort is to deprive the illegal loggers of their loot and make sure that generations of Filipinos benefit from the logs that represented part of the country's future. TESDA Director-General Joel Villanueva said production of the armchairs will start as soon as the furniture-making equipment are installed and ready to operate. He said TESDA will recruit and train the workers who will make the armchairs.

 

Villanueva and Paje said the armchairs will not bear the names of any politician or public official. Instead, common proverbs will be painted on the backside of the armchairs.  — Earl Victor Rosero, GMA News