Jollibee Group was recently conferred with an APAC Tambuli Award promoting inclusive growth through its Farmer Entrepreneurship Program.

MANILA, Philippines. June 21, 2022 – The Jollibee Group was recently recognized by the Asia Pacific (APAC) Tambuli Awards 2022 for promoting Inclusive Growth through its Farmer Entrepreneurship Program. The program engages multi-sectoral partners to train and enable small farmers to become entrepreneurs to improve their livelihood.

Now on its 16th edition, the APAC Tambuli Awards annually recognizes campaigns on effective brand purpose across the globe. Organized by the University of Asia and the Pacific’s School of Communication, the awards introduced the corporate purpose categories this year. Under Corporate Purpose, the Inclusive Growth category recognizes a brand “providing the means and opportunities for the marginalized sectors in society to be part of the company’s success in a sustainable way.”

“Buying directly from farmers allows us to support the local agriculture sector, while promoting sustainable business practices. As we celebrate more milestones, we vow to extend our successes and gains to more communities that would need our help the most,” said Jollibee Group Chief Sustainability and Public Affairs Officer Pepot Miñana.

Farmer Entrepreneurship Program is the flagship program of Jollibee Group Foundation, the company’s social development arm. Under the program, farmers are taught and mentored on the eight-step agro-enterprise clustering approach, which helps farmers to collectively meet the volume and quality requirements of big buyers and market their produce.

To date, JGF as has trained over 3,000 farmers since 2008 and helped develop 17 farmer groups composed of hundreds of farmers to become accredited suppliers of the Jollibee Group. Since 2009, these farmer groups have delivered about 9,000 tons of vegetables to the company equivalent to more than USD7 million worth of sales revenue for the small farmers.

The Foundation implements the program in coordination with several units within the Jollibee Group and forms partnerships with different like-minded institutions to provide various interventions that help farmer become agro-entrepreneurs who can supply different markets. The program currently works with 54 partner organizations, including farmer groups, local government units, non-government organizations, financing institutions, academic institutions, agriculture service providers, and the Department of Agriculture. As a result, smallholder farmers earn higher income, which empowers their capacity to provide food for their own families.

“We are grateful for being recognized the first recipient of Tambuli Award’s Inclusive Growth citation. We share this recognition with our dedicated partners nationwide who work relentlessly to empower smallholder farmers, “added Miñana.