Jollibee Group Given Two ESG Business Awards for Farmer Entrepreneurship Program

MANILA, Philippines. October 3, 2024 – The Farmer Entrepreneurship Program (“FEP” or the “Program”), a joint initiative by Jollibee Group and the Jollibee Group Foundation, Inc. (JGF), received two awards at the ESGBusiness Awards 2024 for its impactful contributions to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the Philippines.

FEP won the ‘Entrepreneurship Development Programme Award,’ recognizing its commitment to supporting aspiring entrepreneurs and cultivating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It also secured the ‘Social Welfare Award’ for ensuring the well-being and basic needs of vulnerable populations, protecting them against risks and hardships, and promoting social and economic stability. This marks the first time the Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF) has been recognized by ESGBusiness, underscoring its dedication to sustainability and fostering equitable futures.

“We extend our gratitude to the ESGBusiness for recognizing our initiatives to empowering smallholder farmers in our country,” said Pepot Miñana Jr., Chief Sustainability and Public Affairs Officer at Jollibee Group. “We believe that the farming sector plays a huge role in achieving food security. Yet, they continue to face significant challenges due to various limitations such as lack of access to resources and sure markets. With FEP, our goal is to help them overcome those barriers by equipping them with skills and knowledge to become effective agro-entrepreneurs.”

The ESGBusiness Awards is an esteemed regional awards program that celebrates companies that lead sustainable development, showcasing those actively making a positive impact through social responsibility.

Empowering smallholder farmers

FEP is an agro-entrepreneurial and leadership program that aims to educate smallholder farmers on innovative farming technologies and entrepreneurship so they can adopt sustainable farming methods, increase their productivity, and gain higher incomes.

With FEP’s support, Filipino smallholder farmers have achieved income stability, repaid loans, accessed better financial services, built their own homes, and funded their children’s tertiary education, and inspired more youth and women to pursue farming.

Achieving supply resiliency

Jollibee Group acknowledges the farmers’ key role in having a resilient supply chain. As the most fundamental partners of the Jollibee Group in achieving its mission of providing a joyful dining experience to its customers, the local smallholder farmers clustered from 16 localities in the country directly provide white onions, green bell peppers, tomatoes, and other vegetables to Jollibee, Mang Inasal, Chowking, and Greenwich branches that ensure exceptional quality and flavor.

This year, Jollibee Group and JGF aim to increase the volume of vegetables supplied to enhance support and opportunities for FEP farmers. In 2023, FEP farmers delivered 1,367,000 kilos of vegetables to the Jollibee Group, meeting 24% of the Group’s onion requirements.

JGF President Gisela Tiongson noted the Program’s significance: “The FEP farmers have been our longtime partners in ensuring that we fulfill our mission of bringing the joy of eating to our customers by sourcing fresh and quality ingredients directly from them. This has been especially helpful for the company in improving supply resiliency and cost efficiency. Still, for the farmers, this means an improved and consistent income that could help uplift their livelihood, scale their business, and obtain access to better financial services.”

To date, FEP has accredited 30 farmer groups, comprising 1,400 farmers. Collectively, these farmers have supplied 11 million kilos of fresh vegetables to Jollibee, generating sales of P500 million.

In order to help more farmers learn the AECA approach, JGF and Xavier University launched in 2021 the Agro-Enterprise for Inclusive Value Chain (AEIVC) course. To date, more than 500 national and local government personnel and cooperative managers have completed the course and cascaded the concepts to the thousands of farmers they assist.

Given the Philippines’ vulnerability to natural disasters, FEP includes the Farmer Livelihood Recovery Program, which offers seedlings and fertilizers to farmers affected by typhoons and strengthens their resilience by enabling quicker recovery.

Through initiatives like FEP, Jollibee Group and JGF continue to demonstrate their commitment to supporting smallholder farmers, reinforcing both economic stability and sustainable supply chains.

The Farmer Entrepreneurship Program, a joint initiative by the Jollibee Group and the Jollibee Group Foundation, Inc. (JGF), won the ‘Entrepreneurship Development Programme Award’ and the ‘Social Welfare Award’ at the recently held ESGBusiness Awards 2024.