Billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong

When Tony Tan Caktiong looks back at his childhood, he remembers tasting things. His father, a chef in a Buddhist monastery in Manila, would return home to cook for his family, making delicious meals from whatever simple ingredients he could find. “My mother would say I was the most difficult to bring up because I was the choosiest in terms of taste, whereas my brothers would just eat anything,” recalls the third of seven children. “She would say, ‘You are the hardest to satisfy.’ ”

Starting with two Manila ice cream parlors in 1978, Tan has built his Jollibee Foods into one of Asia’s largest home-grown restaurant companies. It boasted 2,581 Jollibees and other fast-food restaurants under various brands as of Sept. 30. Today what he calls Jollibee’s “
flavorful environment” and his Buddhist penchant for simplicity are on full display at outlets from Saudi Arabia to the borough of Queens in New York City. “We keep things simple and fill a simple need: very tasty food at a reasonable price. To this day I repeat to my people what my father told me–you have to make sure your food tastes really good.”

Jollibee’s red-and-white bumblebee logo is a familiar sight in the Philippines, where there are now 2,040 outlets after roughly 120 were added in past three years. It controls 18% of the Metro Manila market, compared with 10% for McDonald’s, according to a report on last year’s third quarter compiled for internal use. That ubiquity has made Tan a billionaire–worth roughly $1.3 billion by FORBES ASIA’s latest estimate. Not bad for a restaurant owner whose wife, Grace, says has never really learned to cook. READ MORE >>>>>>

Source: Billionaire Tony Tan Caktiong