Tony Tan Caktiong.

Tony Tan Caktiong grew up the third of seven children in a Chinese-Filipino household in Davao. His father, a cook who had emigrated from Fujian, ran a modest Buddhist temple kitchen in Manila. In 1975, aged 22 and still an engineering student, Tony and his siblings pooled family savings to buy two Magnolia Ice Cream franchises in Cubao, Quezon City. The parlours did well, but customers kept asking for hot food to go with their scoops. Rather than defend the ice cream concept, Tony listened. He added hamburgers, sandwiches and spaghetti to the menu, and within months the hot food was outselling the ice cream it was meant to complement. In 1978 he formally incorporated Jollibee Foods Corporation.

In 1981 McDonald's arrived in the Philippines with its global playbook, deeper pockets and a brand that had already flattened local challengers from Tokyo to Toronto. Industry watchers assumed Jollibee was finished. Advisors urged Tony to sell while the brand still had value. McDonald's reportedly offered to buy him out. He refused. Instead he bet that Filipinos wanted food that tasted like home: sweeter burgers, garlicky fried chicken, spaghetti with banana ketchup and hotdog slices. For most of the 1980s Jollibee grew slowly, store by store, while McDonald's spent heavily.

By 1990 Jollibee had 65 Philippine stores and had decisively overtaken McDonald's in its home market. The company went public in 1993, acquired Greenwich Pizza, Chowking, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal and Smashburger, and pushed overseas starting with Brunei in 1987. By the end of 2024 the Jollibee Group operated 9,766 stores worldwide. Jollibee holds around a 35 percent share of the Philippine fast food market, compared with McDonald's at roughly 19 percent.

The Jollibee story is the clearest case anywhere of local taste beating global scale. Tony Tan Caktiong did not win because he was cheaper, better capitalised or technologically ahead. He won because he understood what Filipinos actually wanted on a plate and refused to apologise for it. Global giants assume their formula travels. It usually does, but only until it meets a founder who treats hometown preferences as a feature, not a limitation.