In the Philippines, the term junk food is pretty much associated with the Jollibee brand.  It took more than only one man for it to become that way, but all it took to start was a person name Tony Tan Caktiong.  The humble beginning for Tony was working with his father to operate a kitchen in Fujian, China.  In 1975, Tony began his entreprenuerial journey with simply two two ice cream parlors in Cubao, Quezon city. 

in spite of his success with the ice cream parlors, Tony didn’t stop there.  He looked around the globe and saw the kind of success chains like McDonalds were having.  Rather than opening a franchise for an existing junk food chain like Burger King or Wendy’s, he decided to grow with the opening of his very own chain of hamburger-serving fast food restaurants named Jollibee in 1978. 

Since McDonald’s had not yet entered into the Philippines, Tony capitalized on this fact by establishing his brand among the Filipino people.  Instead of attempting to learn everything from the start, Tony traveled to the U.  S.  to learn the tricks of the trade from the already established chains like McDonalds.  By implementing these tried and true business practices back in the Phlippines, Tony’s hard work commenced to pay off when his business began to quickly expand.  The division of Jollibee Philippines actually attempts to serve the specific needs of the Filipino folk and its culture by focusing its product development as well as its marketing and advertsing to target the unique and standard Filipino family. 

Today Tony Tan Caktiong serves as a success story and a role model for entreprenuers around the planet.  This was solified in 2004 when Tony was voted the entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.  The boss man of Ernst and Young, James S.  Turley claimed,’These awards are about celebrating world entrepreneurship and the need to continually innovate and expand.  Tony’s story is a very inspiring one, on both these counts.  We are happy he has been selected to get this year’s award.’.

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