Kebab Turki Baba Rafi chain heads to Philippines

Indonesia’s Kebab Turki Baba Rafi chain is set to open in southern Philippines.

Parent company BabaRafi Enterprise says it wants to increase its Philippine footprint, after spending the last three years getting established here.

“We’d like to expand our outlets not just here in Manila but we’re also heading in other islands as well,” said Hendy Setiono, president and director of BabaRafi Enterprise, in a press conference at the Management Association of the Philippines International CEO Conference.

“So after Cotabato, we’d like to go to Zamboanga. Hopefully that would be a great venture in the southern part of the Philippines,”

Setiono said the company has already secured a franchise partner for the south.

Armed with a budget of US$1 million, BabaRafi has set itself an ambitious goal of opening more than 100 stores in the Philippines over the next three years.

“The first three years was only a testing period where we tried the market first and opened 14 outlets but we believe the Philippine market is our biggest ASEAN market outside Indonesia.”

BabaRafi, whose stores are an equal mix of company-owned outlets and franchised operations, also operates in Singapore, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands.