Home grown Filipino brand Jollibee excites Filipinos as it opened its first European store in Ciao, Italy.
Jollibee, the home of the original crispylicious Jollibee fried chicken and spaghetti, has given Filipinos in Italy a taste of home as patrons queued up outside the store, with some coming from neighboring places like Turin, Rome, Venice and Florence. Some even flew from Switzerland and Denmark just to be there.
Speaking to ABS-CBN news, Filipino James Abanilla said that he was excited when he had learned that Jollibee was open there, even if he had to travel for 4 hours. Swiss national Frank Fausch and his family had to travel for 5 hours from Switzerland to Milan, just to bite on that Jollibee. “I know that it’s good so we want to taste again”, he said.
Italy is home to the 7th largest expatriate population of Filipino workers, with close to 272,000 in 2013.
Jollibee Milan is operated by an all-Filipino crew. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said he hoped that the company would expand to other parts of Europe, bringing more jobs and opportunities to Filipinos there.