The country’s largest fast food chain, Jollibee, went under social media fire when it failed to serve a number items on its menu. Among this was the famous Jollibee Chickenjoy, to which the online community un-apologetically responded with the hashtag #chickensad.
Jollibee vs Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
Rival fast food chain KFC moved swiftly, taking advantage of the momentum by posting a quick meme on its official Facebook and Twitter page showing its own fried chicken with a headline that went “#chickensad? There’s a SO GOOD solution for that!”. The meme, which playfully mocks the competition, has since been taken down, but not after it has received thousands of hits.
Jollibee vs McDonald’s
One creative netizen even came up with a comic showing Jollibee and Ronald McDonald locked in combat. The dialogue goes like this:
Jollibee: kengkoy ka! san mo tinago ang mga chicken joy! (you bastard! where did you hide the chicken joy?”
Ronald McDonald: di ku alam … tanung mo kay Kentucky o kay Mang Inasal … (I don’t know … try asking Kentucky (fried chicken) or Mang Inasal …)
In the meantime, Jollibee Foods Corporation (PSE: JFC) released an official statement to the Philippine Stock Exchange to address queries coming from investors, investment analysts, and members of the media. The disclosure was submitted to and approved by the Philippine Stock Exchange on August 8, 2014. As a result of all the negative publicity the stock went down to a daily low of 180.3 PHP per share, but rebounded back up to 182.8 PHP per share, a net loss of 1.61% compared to the previous day’s close of 185.80 PHP per share.
According to representatives its representatives, the company is currently undergoing temporary challenges in order to prepare for long-term growth. This has been the biggest and most wide-spread service interruption that the company has had to face, causing the temporary closure of 72 out of 2,244 Jollibee-owned stores, while many of those that remained open had to operate with a reduced menu that did not include it’s best-seller, the Jollibee Chicken Joy.
The fast food giant is confident that product availability will be restored to normal operational levels. This includes re-opening stores that were temporarily closed due to the issue.
The contents of the full press release can be found here.