Quick service restaurant chain operator Jollibee Foods Corp. is complementing its Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) business with the planned expanded operations of another coffee business acquired from Titan Fund.
Richard Shin, Jollibee chief financial officer, said the Common Man Coffee Roasters brand is primed for a beefed up presence in the boutique segment and exploit its consumer appeal in the wider $2 billion domestic coffee market.
Shin ruled out competing or cannibalizing the market served by CBTL which remains its banner coffee business, saying the Common Man brand is “a different expression of coffee” best served as a boutique enterprise.
“It’s not going to be a 500 or 600-store brand but it’s got wonderful product categories. We’re going somewhere in that range of keeping it very boutique but also accessible to our consumers in particular, starting with Metro Manila,” Shin said.
He noted coffee consumers in the Philippines do not only want mere convenience but also some sense of brand connection to go with the experience.
“Unlike the trend that we’re seeing (such) as pick-up coffee, we are not of the view that we should look to migrate 100 percent to kiosks. We think of investing in what we call the cafe model, the real sit down, which has a lot of merit in places where we’re competing against Starbucks. That’s not just in the US but across Asia and everywhere else,” he said.JFC has invested in specialty coffee brands and acquired Taiwan’s Bubble Tea in February of last year.
Early this month the enterprise announced adding into its portfolio the Singapore/Malaysia coffee brand Common Man Coffee Roasters for strategic reasons.
Shin said the Common Man expansion caters to a new segment of the larger coffee business that the enterprise is excited to test in the Philippines.
