Jollibee sales strong as operations return to normal

MANILA, Philippines - Fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) has returned to operations all outlets in Metro Manila that have been temporarily closed, officially putting a close to the hashtag #ChickenSad that became famous among netizens earlier this month.

In a statement, JFC said all stores that have been temporarily closed due to lack of products resulting from distribution problems caused by systems change issues have been opened last Sunday.

“Sales for Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014 were very strong across the brands despite the limited availability of non-core products in some stores. The sales growth was very significant, most likely due to pent-up demand resulting from the lack of available products in the past two weeks,” the firm said.

JFC operates the largest fastfood service network in the Philippines with 2,245 branches composed of 840 Jollibee branches, 406 Chowking, 207 Greenwich, 298 Red Ribbon, 456 Mang Inasal and 38 Burger King.

Constraints in the sales order taking due to a new information technology system prompted the fastfood giant to close 72 several stores across its different brands.

The fastfood giant said its largest selling products for each brand have already been available in all the stores but some lower selling products are still not yet available in some stores.

JFC said all products are expected to be available in all the stores within the week.

For Aug. 17, the company said total system-wide sales in the Philippines amounted to P288.3 million, representing a 28.2-percent growth compared to the same Sunday a year ago.

System-wide sales for the first 17 days of August, meanwhile, amounted to P8 billion, up 7.7 percent over the same period in August last year.