AMERICAN SPECIALTY ice cream brand, Baskin Robbins, known for its wide array of flavors — enough for every day of the month — has just opened its 14th store in the Philippines, two years after its return to the country.
“The development agreement was for 50 stores in five years so if you look at it in those terms, we’re actually a little bit behind schedule, but that’s also part of the plan because it’s not like, you know, 50 equally divided [through the five years]. There’s going to be more stores opening towards the latter part of the development agreement than it was previously,” Michael Dargani, president of IceDream, Inc., the Philippine licensee of Baskin Robbins in the Philippines, told BusinessWorld during the launch on Oct. 1 in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), Taguig.
The newest branch is located in Bonifacio High Street and is the company’s fourth within BGC after Bonifacio High Street Central Mall (the first branch in the area), SM Aura Premier, and Uptown Mall.
Mr. Dargani added that they are planning to expand “more aggressively” starting next year.
The brand, founded in 1945, has over 7,300 stores spread across 50 countries. It is said to be the largest ice cream chain in the world. It entered the Philippines in 2014.
“We were very confident about the popularity of the brand… but basically it’s everything that we had hoped for and more,” Mr. Dargani said of the brand’s Philippine reception.
Banking on that same reception, he said that more than hitting the 50 store target, the brand is focusing on opening “quality stores.”
“I want 50 quality locations. We have an excellent relationship with our principals and I think they get it as well that look if that number winds up becoming 45 but they’re 45 high quality stores, I’m sure they’re not going to [complain],” he said before adding, “It depends on the quality of location because sometimes we have to wait. We have so many offers to grow but most of them we turn down because it’s a strong brand [and] the developers want to work with us [and] we wanna work with them, but we wanna make sure we get the best spots and that sometimes that means waiting a year or two.”
Baskin Robbins recently ventured outside Metro Manila and into surrounding regions, having opened a store in SM Dasmariñas in Cavite and in Nuvali in Laguna.
But expanding into places outside Luzon will have to wait until next year.
“There are plans [of opening in Cebu]. We had meant to do that in the earlier part of this year, but I think, as we were getting into it, just the scale of the expansion and doing so much, we felt that we were rushing it a bit and so I took my foot off the gas a little bit, and try to focus on the Manila stores or Luzon. And then thereafter maybe going to Cebu next year,” he said. — Zsarlene B. Chua
