Who are some successful Filipinos

in the food service industry?

Bryan Tiu grew is one successful Filipinos in the food service industry. In 2001 he
opened a restaurant named Teriyaki Boy.

Tony Tan Caktiong - Jollibee

Twenty-seven years ago we
didnt have a firm vision that
we would be number one, but we
had a rough vision that we
would go outside the
Philippines. We also had a goal:
to take care of our customers
and employees and to enjoy what were doing. Once we did all these things, the profits
would come. Tony Tan Caktiong
Tony Tan Caktiong was born on October 07, 1960 to a working-class family from Fujian,
China, who migrated to the Philippines during the post WWII era. Tonys father found
work as a cook at a Buddhist temple in downtown Manila and accordingly scrimped and
saved so he could open his own Chinese restaurant in order to provide for his family. His
fathers hard work and perseverance made it possible for Tony Tan Caktiong to earn a
BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sto. Tomas, the Philippines oldest
university.
In 1975, Tony ventured into the food business by buying an ice cream parlor franchise
from the once famous Magnolia Ice Cream House. The parlor was small and nondescript,
which catered mostly to the well heeled shoppers of Cubao. They were customers who
could afford to buy cleverly concocted but rather expensive cobblers, floats, milkshakes,
banana splits, sundaes and parfaits.
However, most of Tonys regulars wished that the parlor had something else to offer,
other than ice-cream concoctions. Hence, the small nondescript store started offering
sandwiches, fries and fried chicken, which started to attract the attention of other tired
and hungry shoppers, movie-theater goers and passers-by. The word fastfood was still
unheard of at that time, but it was what the small store had to offer at affordable prices.
Soon after, customers started filling the store beyond its capacity as they patiently waited
for their turn to be served. By 1978, Tony added six more ice cream parlors around Metro
Manila, but the ice cream treats were no longer the attraction. Taking inspiration from
Americas fast-rising McDonalds food chain, Tony and his family decided to
transform the ice cream parlors into fastfood outlets.

They strategized with their new venture by coming up with a unique name and symbol.
Since Tony personally felt happy by working busily as a bee to produce honey, which in
Tonys case was money, he and his family decided to work on the busy bee concept.
Hence, they came up with the large red and yellow bee with an effervescent smile on its
face and called it "Jollibee".
The once nondescript ice cream kiosk became Jollibee Food Corporation and braved the
arrival of the McDonalds fast food chain in the Philippines in 1981. Jollibee came out
unscathed as it became the first Philippine food chain to break the one billion peso sales
mark in 1989. The groundwork for global expansion was laid out when it became the first
food service company to be listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange, for which
capitalization funds started pouring in.
The rest is history, as Jollibee now owns its former competitors in the local fastfood chain
business, Greenwich Pizza, Chowking (oriental dishes), Red Ribbon and DeliFrance
bakeshops and lately Mang Inasal (chicken specialty house). Today, these fastfood chains
are found in different parts of the world along with Jollibee's globally recognized trade
name.
Tonys management and leadership style garnered the recognition not only of the
Philippines local award-giving bodies but also that of the World Entrepreneur Award
in 2004, in Monte Carlo, Monaco He is the first Filipino entrepreneur to receive the
prestigious award.
In return, Jollibee Foundation was established in 2005, to specifically address the social
responsibility of the company. The foundation provides assistance to its employees and
communities on a nationwide scale regarding matters of education, housing, leadership
and social developments, environmental conservation and responses to disaster problems
in times of calamitous events.
From Ice Creams To Burgers
Tony Tan Caktiong only had a two-outlet ice cream parlor business in Manila
back in 1975. Although his business was doing quite well back then, he
refused to settle with being just another ice cream parlor. His desire to
expand his business even further became stronger when he thought of
coming up with his own fast-food chain.

Lifestyle Feature ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch:

Together with his brother, Tony went to the United States to study each and
every aspect of the fast-food business. By learning the tricks of the trade and
implementing the best practices of the business, Tony established his own
chain of hamburger-serving fast-food restaurants named Jollibee in 1978.
By establishing his brand among Filipinos, Tony had Jollibee well ahead of
foreign competition by that time. And today, Jollibee Foods Corporation is now
acknowledged as one of the top-performing companies in the country, also

running other successful food chains such as Chowking, Greenwich, Red

Ribbon, and more recently, Mang Inasal.

Corazon D. Ong-CDO Foodsphere,Inc.

Corazon D. Ong is a dietitian by
profession who used her
knowledge to create affordable
processed meat products that
could compete with the already
well known and established
processed meat brands. Initially,
it was only a hobby where she could put to good use her creativity and skill in culinary
arts. She came up with corned beef, hotdogs, meatloaf, hamburger patties and ham, an
entity that she later sold as a home business.
She founded CDO Foodsphere in 1975; as the products reputation for affordable quality
became widespread, the demand for CDO products likewise increased. The creative
homemaker understood every mothers need for quick lunch fixes for their children but
convenience should also come in affordable packages. Corazon likewise understood the
taste preferences of Filipino children but her knowledge of ingredients and their
nutritional values gave her product the advantage.
Today, CDO Foodsphere is a highly-recognized supplier of meat toppings for Yum!
Restaurant International, a known operator of global Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) ,
which includes Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and Long John Silver . Locally, CDO supplies
the meat toppings to nine out of ten QSRs operating in the Philippines. The clamor for
CDO products stems from numerous awards and recognitions that the processed meat
products have received, owing to their quality and excellence.
Alfredo Yao Zest-O Corporation
When Zest-O was established,
it had a single yet valuable
mission, to provide products of
immense consumer value and
quality that exceeds even the
scrutiny of global measure.
Alfredo Yao
Alfredo Yao's story is yet another rags-to-riches tale of a self-made businessman who rose
from poverty through hard work and determination. He had to face lifes hard realities at
the age of 12 when his father died; his mother tried to support Alfredo and five other

siblings with her earnings as a sidewalk vendor.Through the help of a relative, he was
able to finish his elementary and high school education. However, he was unable to
complete his college education at the Mapua Institute of Technology, which he attended
while doing odd jobs at a warehouse of a packaging company.
Through a cousin who was working with a printing press, Alfredo Yao learned the ropes
on printing cellophane wrappers for candies and biscuits and went on to venture into
operating a printing press business. The business thrived for about 20 years until Alfredo
Yao saw the potentials of the "doy packs", then the latest European packaging technology.
Initially, Alfredo's first intention was to offer the doy-pack packaging to some local
juice manufacturers, but since there were no takers, he ventured into the juice
manufacturing business himself.
In 1980, Alfredo Yao started concocting fruit juices in his own kitchen and launched the
Zest-O orange drinks in the same year. It became an instant hit as every mother saw the
practicality of putting the light but tightly-packed orange drinks in their kids lunch
boxes. Kids loved it that their chilled fruit drinks stayed cold and fresh till snack time.
Today, Zest-O drinks come in 12 variants and command 80% of the market for fruit
juices. It has expanded its business to China, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore,
the U.S. and Europe and has helped revitalize the fruit growing industry in the provinces,
particularly the Philippines native orange variety called "dalandan". The doy packs are
being recycled by local cottage industries into handbags and are now being exported to
other countries.
Aside from expanding the business by producing other ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook
food products, Zest-O Corporation now owns the former Asian Spirit Airlines, which
CEO Alfredo Yao aptly renamed as Zest Air.
Food Service Job Opportunities
by Phillip S. Cooke
Culinary schools and universities offering degrees in hospitality management do a
disservice to the food-service industry by narrowly focusing on potential career
opportunities, usually citing only restaurants or hotels as possible venues for
employment. In fact, job opportunities stretch to the furthermost horizon. Whether an
individual is interested in becoming a chef, eventually moving up the ladder to sous chef,
chef de cuisine, and executive chef, or has a goal of entering front-of-the-house
management, there are stable, well-paid positions in a number of fields, all offering
advancement and a proper balance of job to life that is becoming increasingly important
to those now entering the workplace.
There was a time, thirty years ago and earlier, when there was a definite stigma attached
to working in the noncommercial sector of the food-service industry. Employee feeding
offered dimly lit cafeterias with battleship gray walls and steam-table food that became
increasingly unappetizing the longer it remained. With a captive market, little imagination
went into either the decor or food. But then, a funny thing happened on the way to the

cafeteria. Office buildings, banks, plants, and manufacturing facilities suddenly found
themselves surrounded by chains and other restaurants. Employees could now walk
across the street to catch lunch in well lit, pleasant surroundings, ordering foods that
matched their lifestyles at reasonable prices. Visionaries such as Richard Ysmael at
Motorola, Neil Reyer at Chase Manhattan Bank, and Kay Stammers at Eastman Kodak
quickly responded and said, almost in unison, It's time for a change! In came bright
colors, attractive dining areas, foods cooked in small batches to order, innovative salad
bars, sandwich stations, dessert bars, theme days, and just about everything imaginable
borrowed from their commercial brethren.
Almost every segment of the industry quickly joined the revolution. Colleges first added
fast-food and pizzachain outlets to their student unions, then adapted decor and menus
that echoed the commercial market to their dining halls. A young genius by the name of
Michael Berry created a totally new approach to college and university feeding that
became the template for all educational institutions. Hospitals moved quickly to upgrade
patient food service. Queenie Towers Hospital in St. Louis shocked the entire foodservice industry when it offered cocktail and wine service (doctor approval needed) to
their daily menus. And Helen Doherty at Massachusetts General Hospital modeled her
food service so closely to her commercial counterparts that it was virtually
indistinguishable from dining in an upscale restaurant.
The result of all of this activity was that young people, for the first time, were attracted to
work in the noncommercial food service. And, best of all, it fit their new penchant for
working a normal eight-hour day with holidays and weekends usually free.
Today we have an explosion of opportunities in this area. Whole new categories of food
service have opened.
With an aging population, retirement centers are blossoming across the landscape, with
upscale townhouses, apartments, and assisted-living complexes that resemble four-star
hotels. These offer such amenities as dining rooms, coffee shops, and even cocktail
lounges. In fact, the next wave will almost certainly see the entrance of major hotel
chains into this burgeoning market.
Museum food service, once confined to snack bars and vending machines, has progressed
to the point where the art may now be the secondary reason for visiting. The Des Moines
Art Center, one of the nation's best small museums, is consistently listed as having one of
the finest restaurants in the city. The Art Institute in Chicago boasts some of the best food
and best catering services in the Midwest. The venerable Metropolitan Museum in New
York created satellite dining opportunities throughout the museum, and the recently
restored and expanded Museum of Modern Art has brought aboard Danny Meyer, one of
the city's most celebrated restaurateurs, to shepherd its fine-dining establishment.
The more adventuresome may even want to look beyond these parameters. Spas are
sprouting like dandelions. Country clubs have done an outstanding job in recent years of
elevating their dining rooms and other food service to meet the rising expectations of

their increasingly sophisticated and well-traveled members. Cruise ships offering meals
twenty-four hours a day now relentlessly ply the seas and oceans of the planet. And sports
arenas and racetracks now offer every imaginable type of food service, from the everpopular hot dog to fine dining in luxurious surroundings. Levy Brothers, the Chicagobased restaurant and catering company, operates all the food service at Churchill Downs
in Louisville, and has introduced a new stratum of culinary excellence and service to the
sport of kings.
For those who enjoy life on a more intimate scale, there are bed and breakfasts scattered
over hill and dale, and personal chefs are much in demand for fortunate individuals who
can afford to be nurtured.
For those inclined toward a more regimented lifestyle, there are even food-service
opportunities in prisons, army bases, officers' clubs, and the mess halls of the four service
academies in the United States and abroad.
In short, there are unbounded opportunities for anyone and everyone interested in food
service, whether working alone, for an entrepreneurial organization, or under the aegis of
a major corporation such as Aramark, Sodhexo, or the Compass Group. I urge any person
considering a career in the food-service industry to open his or her mind to the many
types of positions that wait to be discovered, and to remember that, today, every segment
of the food service industry offers unique and rewarding possibilities.
Careers in the Food Industry

Below are descriptions of several careers in the food industry that are listed in activity 6a.
What's my line? in Level A Six Easy Bites.

Advertising Sepcialist - organizes advertising for print media, coordinates

advertising promotions, and is familiar with the food industry.
Grocery Store Manager - oversees all grocery store employees, advertising,
marketing, and purchases.
Food Processing Worker - a person who works in a food processing plant that
has a specific role in creating the finished food product.
Extension Educator - a person who works in the county educating the public on
a variety of issues and topics.
Health Inspector - a health department worker who is responsible for inspecting
restaurants and cafeterias. They assign a rating for the public to view after each
inspection.
Food Technologist - applies science and engineering to the manufacturing
process of food development.
Baker - a person who bakes and uses foods such as breads and cakes.

Home Economics Teacher - a person who works in a Jr. High or High School
and educates students on general food preparation and preservation, general
nutrition, and life skills such as cleaning and organization.
Researcher - a person who researches and investigates proposed methods and
new discoveries.

Bus Boy/Bus Girl - a waitress or waiter's helper in a restaurant,

usually in the clean up of a table.
Food Broker - a person who buys or sells food for food manufacturing
companies.
Food Scientist - applies scientific and engineering principles in
research, development, product technology, quality control, packaging,
processing, and utlization of food.
Butcher - a person who slaughters or dresses animals for food; also a
dealer in meat.
Food Salesman - a person who markets, represents, and promotes
the sale of certain food products for a specific food manufacturing
company.
Test Kitchen Manager - a person that manages the employees and
work performed in a test kitchen. Test kitchen workers research and
develop new food ingredients and products.
Nutrition Aide - a person who works in a nutrition or dietary
department and completes a variety of tasks. These tasks may include
delivering trays to patients in a hospital or serving food in a cafeteria.
Public Relations - a person who works in the marketing and
representation of food products to the general public.
Caterer - a person who provides food and service, for example at large
parties or wedding receptions.
Food Demonstrator - a person who demonstrates the preparation of
a recipe. Demonstrators may work in a kitchen store, TV stations, or
restaurants.
Writer for Newsletter - a person who writes about specific food
related topics for newsletters. Topics may include food, restaurant, or
recipe reviews, food preparation techniques, or nutrition and wellness
advice.
Hospital Food Service - a person who works in a hospital kitchen
preparing and serving food to patients, workers, and guests.
Dietitian - a person who coordinates, plans, and conducts programs to
educate patients about nutrition and administers medical nutrition
therapy. Dietitians also may oversee a food service operation.
Nutritionist - a person who conducts programs on nutrition; often
works in wellness or weight loss clinics.
Host/Hostess - a person who greets and then seatss individuals as
they enter a restaurant.
Dishwasher - a person who rinses, loads, and operates a dishwasher
in a food service kitchen.
School Lunch Server - Serves food to youth in a school cafeteria.
Vending Machine Stocker - a person who travels to area vending
machines and restocks them.

Farmer - a person who operates a farm, including raising livestock,

planting, and harvesting land.
Stock Person - a person who works with inventory in a food
warehouse. This person oversees the entering and exiting of food from
a manufacturer's warehouse.
Warehouse Supervisor - a person who oversees the employees and
actions of a food storage warehouse.
Packer - a person who works in a food processing plant that packs
foods in product packaging according to food safety and freshness
requrements.
Waiter/Waitress - a person who waits on tables in a restaurant,
serving food and drinks.
Statistician - a person who works with the supply and demand of
food. Statisticians interpret data to determine percentages.
Truck Driver - a person who transports food either from the farmer to
the processing plant or from the processing plant to the grocery store,
restaurant, or food market.
Food Service Worker - Prepares salads, sauces, desserts, entrees
according to proper preparation methods. Serves food to customers.
Food Photojournalist - a person who writes about food, recipes, or
techniques using photographs as the main story, with small captions
underneath.