‘We’d like to order 350,000 Chickenjoy servings, please’

With over 500 Jollibee stores nationwide serving millions of customers daily, preparing 500,000 hamburgers, 350,000 Chickenjoy meals and 100,000 pocket pies every single day is no easy job.

This task, however, is efficiently carried out by utilizing the six-hectare state-of-the-art manufacturing and logistics facility known as the Zenith Foods Corp Commissary, a fully owned subsidiary of Jollibee Foods Corp., located in the Carmelray Industrial Park in Canlubang, Laguna.

The P1.5-billion world-class commissary south of Manila was inaugurated in January 2004 to cater to the needs of the fast-growing network of Jollibee stores nationwide.

"With the continuous expansion of Jollibee and the increasing number of outlets mushrooming all over the country, there was a need to build additional capacity through a bigger and better commissary to ensure the superior quality and consistent great taste of Jollibee’s product lines," explained Wilma Bocaya, Zenith’s plant manager.

"The expansion project sought to enforce operational efficiency and strict adherence to environmental standards," added Bocaya, who is a Food Technologist by profession and has been with Jollibee for the past 12 years.

The commissary, which was designed to meet the requirements of 800 Jollibee stores, is a high-capacity plant facility where all the burger patties, Chickenjoy, sauces, hotdogs and meats, frozen pies, bread as well as spices and blends are prepared.

The facility employs the latest in food preparation and handling technology, such that it takes only 16 people per shift to grind high-grade beef from Australia, New Zealand and Brazil; marinate, freeze and pack 175 tons of hamburger patties every week.

The other all-important component of Jollibee’s langhap sarap burgers – the buns – are prepared and baked in undoubtedly the country’s largest integrated bun production line, with about 450,000 buns and rolls produced daily.

The advances in technology also ensure the consistency in size and flavor of 20 tons of marinated chicken cut-ups everyday, or roughly 200,000 servings of Chickenjoy – a favorite of millions of Jollibee’s loyal patrons.

The most flexible line in the Jollibee commissary is the sauce line. Here, various soup bases, pie fillings and the distinctive sauces for Jolly Spaghetti and Palabok Fiesta are churned out to perfection. "With the capability of producing 48 tons of sauces everyday, that would be equivalent to half a million spaghetti servings and 160,000 pocket pies in 20 hours of production," explained Bocaya.

"The highly automated nature of our operations is important to ensure compliance to the highest quality and safety standards. We owe it to our millions of ever-increasing customers, who continue to trust and patronize our products," added Bocaya.

Top-of-the-line cold-storage facilities ensure that the very critical cold chain is not at all disrupted for built-in safety and quality of all Jollibee products.

"And from an integrated supply chain point of view, the efficiently prepared Jollibee products are immediately transferred to the closely monitored refrigerated storage facilities to guarantee the langhap sarap freshness of all our goods. With the use of modern warehouse management systems and materials handling equipment, the freshness and quality of products are further maintained prior to final delivery to our stores nationwide," said Bocaya.

Such is the efficiency, quality assurance and effectiveness provided by Jollibee’s commissary to make sure that more and more Filipinos enjoy Jollibee’s goodness and value offered. The Zenith Foods Corp. Commissary, with its capacity and efficiency, is committed to more and more high quality Jollibee food items that Filipinos, through the years, have learned to love.