Jollibee sets sights on 30 US cities

Homegrown fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) has set its sights on 30 cities in the United States for new store expansion of flagship Jollibee brand.

- RICHMOND MERCURIO

In a press briefing, JFC CFO Richard Shin said the company has identified the 30 top cities in the US for fried chicken using data that other major quick-service restaurants (QSR) such as KFC and Popeyes use as well.

"The 30 cities that we've identified, we've also identify where we have stores and where we have white space. That process will mean that we'll take that as priority for the new stores," Shin said.

"So we'll start to fill in those 30 locations because they had the highest disposable income as a percentage spent to our segment. So they eat out the QSR space. Having said that, I don't know where we can end up in terms of number of states. But that process of 30 cities and sometimes you have multiple cities in a state...I think is probably the way we want to go," he said.

Jollibee currently has 100 stores in North America, with branches in 14 states in the US.