Jollibee goes into café business

MANILA, Philippines - Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC), through its wholly owned Singapore-based unit JSF Investments Pte. Ltd., is venturing into the coffee business in Asia through a joint venture with Viet Thai International Joint Stock Co.

Under the plan, JSF Investments will own a 50-percent stake in SuperFoods Group, which owns and operates various brands including Highlands Coffee Shops in Vietnam, Highlands Coffee Packaged Products and Hard Rock Café franchised stores in Macau, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

The agreement signed on May 20, 2011 states that JFC would invest $25 million for a 50-percent stake in SuperFoods and provide a $35-million loan to VTI. JFC had also advanced $5 million to the SuperFoods Group.

Just recently, the SuperFoods Group, which has annual sales of $30 million, acquired the Pho 24 brand and restaurants which have presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Japan.

Highlands Coffee serves Vietnamese coffee and light meals in trendy coffee shops. It also sells packaged coffee through retail outlets.

On the other hand, Pho 24 serves traditional Vietnamese dish with rice noodles as its core products.

JFC and Viet Thai aim to offer Asian mass consumers high quality coffee and café experience at affordable prices through the Highlands Cofee shops and the Highlands brand of packaged products.

Currently, Highlands Coffee has 54 stores in Vietnam while Pho 24 has 48 restaurants in Vietnam, 11 in Indonesia, four in Hong Kong, three in Tokyo, one in Cambodia and two in the Philippines.

In the Philippines, the franchising rights for operating Highlands Coffee Shops was granted to IP Ventures Inc. pursuant to an agreement made on Dec. 20, 2011 between IP Ventures and Blue Sky Holdings Ltd.

The JFC Group operates the largest restaurant network in the Philippines with a total of 1,979 as of Nov. 30, 2011 – Jollibee (737), Chowking (390), Greenwich (206), Red Ribbon (208), Mang Inasal (415) and Burger King (23).

Overseas, it operates 446 stores: Yonghe King (248), Hong Zhuang Yuan (52), Jollibee in the US (27), Vietnam (27), Brunei (11), Jeddah (7), Hong Kong and Qatar (1) each, Red Ribbon (33) and Chowking (39).