Fruitas Holdings Inc., a leading food and beverage kiosk operator, the surpassed 1,000-store mark following the company’s aggressive outlet rollout across the country.
Fruitas said in a statement it now had 1,036 stores across the country as of end November 26, after new kiosks were recently opened in Metro Manila and key provinces like Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan, Tarlac, Zambales, Cebu, Iloilo, Aklan, Davao and Cagayan De Oro.
Fruitas ended last year with 930 stores nationwide. It ended June this year with 949 stores and has since added 87 stores in less than five months.
Fruitas, which will debut on the Philippine Stock Exchange on November 29 under the ticker symbol “FRUIT,” also re-launched Coffee Talk, a coffee and tea kiosk concept. It recently started to sell some of our bottled fruit juices on open refrigerator shelves inside the supermarkets of Landmark.
Meanwhile, the company reported the maiden share offering was well-received by retail and institutional investors, resulting in an oversubscription.
Fruitas plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to finance the company’s store network expansion and outlet improvement. The new funds will also pave the way for the introduction of new concepts and in the acquisition of future brands, commissary expansion and debt repayment.
“We are happy with the results of the offering of Fruitas. The broker tranche was more than 2.5 times oversubscribed, while the local small investor tranche was a record amount for a Philippine IPO. The exceptional performance and positive response from the market prove that the public believes in Fruitas’ strong fundamentals and aggressive expansion plans in the country,” said First Metro Investment Corp. executive vice president Daniel Camacho.
The company started from a single kiosk stand in SM Manila back in 2002.
After 17 years, Fruitas continues to be a front-runner in the industry and has cemented its position as a market leader across four business segments in the kiosk industry—fruit shakes under Fruitas, coconut beverages under Buko ni Fruitas, meat-filled pastries under De Original Jamaican Pattie, and lemonade Johnn Lemon, according to a recent study of the University of Asia & Pacific.
The company is also behind well-loved Filipino brands such as Sabroso Lechon, Juice Avenue, Black Pearl, and lifestyle food parks like Le Village and Uno Cinquenta in Quezon City.