Jollibee inks "padala" deal with MLhuillier

CEBU, Philippines – Filipino-owned food chain Jollibee Foods Corporation recently sealed its partnership deal with Cebu-based M. Lhuillier Philippines to roll out a nationwide project dubbed as Jollibee Meal Padala.

With its tagline, “Ipadala ang Saya sa Mahal Mo,” Jollibee Meal Padala is aimed at enabling family members to send out Jollibee meals faster to their loved ones all over the Philippines through utilizing M. Lhuillier’s ML Kwarta Padala service as a mediator for the payment of orders.

According to JFC national key accounts head Jun B. Silao, senders can just go to any M. Lhuillier branch and place order for any of their five Jollibee meal packages and their receiver can opt to either take the orders dine in any of their Jollibee outlets, take out or delivered in their homes.

“There is a need for us to extend our service so that a lot of Filipinos can order and deliver Jollibee food products to their loved ones anywhere in the country if they are working far from their homes,” said Silao.

He said that with this extra service, their clients can order anywhere and deliver anywhere in the country.

Silao said that there is a time allocation that needs to be followed for the orders that they have placed and it also follows their existing standard for quality so customers are still assured of the products that they get for the service.

He said that after a specific customer place an order to any M. Lhuillier branch, these orders are forwarded to their call center which instructs the Jollibee outlet that is nearest to the receiver for the orders placed.

“This service is also our way of reaching out to our customers from far flung areas that are not reached by our Jollibee outlets. This can also serve as a medium to connect parents and family members to their loved ones which are far from them,” said Silao.

He said that the five meal packages are good for five heads and the rate of this particular service is the same in their branches only that senders pay out extra for ML Kwarta Padala service charge.

The project will be piloted here in Cebu and in Metro Manila and will be rolled out nationwide in July.

Right now, Jollibee has around 663 branches all over the Philippines and Silao said that they are still planning to open up more stores this year and reach their 700 target by year end.

Meanwhile, M. Lhuillier Philippines are present in about 1, 200 locations all over the country from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

M. Lhuillier Philippines vice president Michael L. Lhuillier said in an interview that their Jollibee Meal Padala project marks the start of their “strategic partnership” with another Filipino company.

He said that the partnership has been developed over a year ago and it is only now that they have actually signed the contract that sealed the deal to jumpstart this national project.

Lhuillier said that at this point, it is important to start building relationships with other companies to widen and to expand their reach to the market.

“This is the first time that two Filipino companies collaborated for this kind of project that is looking at providing the needs of the market. This will only be the first of many joint projects that we will do together in the future,” said Lhuillier. —Rhia de Pablo