Jollibee Foods Corp. said it will build more coffee shops to tap into the $2- billion coffee and tea market in the Philippines but said it will not join the ready-to-go coffee bandwagon.
Jollibee owns The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Highlands Coffee. Jollibee is adding into its portfolio the Singapore/Malaysia coffee shop brand Common Man Coffee Roaster.
Richard Shin, Jollibee chief finance officer, said patrons prefer the coffee shop experience as opposed to ready-to-go coffee.
“We recognize that consumers want convenience. But they also want to have some sense of brand connection. Unlike the trend that we’re seeing… we are not of the view that we should look to migrate 100 percent to kiosks,” Shin said.
“Investing in what we call the cafe model, (where customers) sit down has a lot of merit in places where we’re competing against (such as) Starbucks,” he added.
Tea is also a segment that is growing in places like China where it is a multi billion dollar business.
Jollibee has specialty coffee, Vietnamese coffee, like Highland Coffee and Taiwanese specialty coffee led by Bubble Tea called MilkSha which Jollibee bought in February 2022.
Shin said the Common Man brand will complement the group’s existing brand with its focus on “the more premium barista coffee.”
“It’s not going to be a 500-, 600-store brand. But it’s got to wonderful product categories. So we’re going to be somewhere in that range of still keeping it very boutique, but also accessible to our consumers in particular starting with Metro Manila,” Shin said.
