Jollibee closes Manong Pepe unit to focus on bigger restaurants

MANILA, Philippines -  Foods Corp. (JFC) has discontinued the operations of its low-cost homestyle Filipino fastfood chain Manong Pepe Karinderia as part of a strategy to focus its resources in building larger quick-service restaurant businesses.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, JFC said its wholly-owned unit Fresh N’ Famous Foods Inc. decided to stop the operations of Manong Pepe, which has around 10 branches in Metro Manila.

In December last year, JFC likewise divested its Delifrance business with the sale of assets to CaféFrance Corp. for P100 million.

Manong Pepe began operating as a new restaurant concept in 2007, serving Filipino food at very low prices, targeting mainly people in the work force in urban centers.

JFC chief financial officer Ysmael Baysa said the cessation of operations of Manong Pepe Karinderia will not have a material impact on JFC’s profit.

The group though will retain and maintain its Manong Pepe trademark and operating processes for potential use in the long term. It also plans to convert existing Manong Pepe stores to its other brands where the sites are suitable.

JFC said it would concentrate on building the fast-growing barbeque fastfood chain Mang Inasal business, in which the group owns 70 percent. The founder and owners of Mang Inasal, through Injap Investments Inc., keep a 30 percent interest in the company.   

JFC operates the largest food service in the the country with a total of 1,921 stores as of end-December last year, broken down as follows: Jollibee (717), Chowking (400), Greenwich (223), Red Ribbon (221), Manong Pepe (12), Cafe Ti Amo (3) and Mang Inasal (345). It was also operating (395) stores abroad, comprising Yonghe King in the Peoples Republic of China (200), Jollibee (67) (mainly in the United Sates 26, Vietnam 22 and Brunei 11), Red Ribbon (38) all in the US, Chowking (38) (mostly in the US with 19 and Dubai 15) and Honzhuang Yuan (52).

Combined, the group owns a total of 2,316 stores worldwide.

JFC posted net earnings of P3.09 billion last year, up 16 percent from 2009, mainly driven by strong growth across all its brands coupled with the first time contribution of the newly-acquired Mang Inasal business.

System-wide sales, a measure of all sales to consumers both from company-owned and franchised stores, rose 10.2 percent to P70.25 billion while revenues went up 11.2 percent to P53.35 billion. Net operating income amounted to P3.67 billion, 11.1 percent higher than the P3.3 billion recorded a year earlier.