My Personal Visit to a Jollibee Chain

I have experienced Jollibee here and in the Philippines.

In both places, I also find that it has been over-rated.

A couple of years (or three) before the opening of the

first Jollibee in Daly City, I was invited to meet with a

few Jollibee franchisees from Manila and their Director of

franchising, to discuss their plan to operate

internationally. (i.e., in the USA).

One of the local franchisees from Manila - Paulino (can't

remember the family name)- a Chinese businessman and former

NCAA soccer star that formed the formidable triumvirate of

Pepe Te and Larry Chua of Mapua back in the 60's - told me

of their grave concern and hesistancy about opening in the

USA: "The strongest McDonald outlet here sells only 3,000

hamburgers daily. That is not enough to justify opening up

an outlet of Jollibee...."

To which I remarked: "I don't know where you got the

figures of 3,000 daily.

But that's a lot of hamburgers a

day, even for McDonald."

I added: "Besides, it would be pretentious for Jollibee to

imagine that they are competing with McDonald. They are

not in the same league, nor in the same business. And if

this is the mission-vision that Jollibee Manila has about

competition in the USA, they probably should not even

consider opening up an outlet in the USA."

This is the same distorted view of competition that Max

Fried Chicken when they first entered the fast food market

in Daly City back in the mid-to-late 80's. Both Plary and

Linda Trota Fuentebella mistakenly identified their

competitors as KFC (then known as Kentucky Fried Chicken).

Barely 6 months in operation, Max Fried Chicken became

a "turo-turo" restaurant (with shades of Barrio Fiesta menu)

and a special side menu of fried chicken. But they

retained the name MAX...