With Bistro Group under Bounty, what’s next for the chicken giant? Nope, not an IPO

Bounty Fresh may now have a seat at the casual dining table, but it still has no appetite for the stock market.

After four decades as a closely held business of the Chen family, the poultry giant behind Bounty Fresh and Chooks-to-Go is still private, even after its owners snapped up The Bistro Group. That’s the restaurant operator behind brands like Italianni’s, TGI Fridays, Texas Roadhouse, and other full-service dining concepts.

Naturally, the rumor mill has been churning: when will Bounty finally go public?

Bounty Fresh Group Holdings president and CEO Kenneth Cheng seemed to know it was coming. At the group’s 40th anniversary event, when the first question from media turned to expansion, Cheng joked: “I thought you were going to ask if we’re going to IPO. But no, we’re not going to IPO.”

So naturally, after the event, the media asked him about it again. Bounty’s stance?

“You only IPO if you have big plans that need a big amount of money,” Cheng said on the sidelines of the event. “Our growth is always measured. We don’t want to grow just to dominate the whole industry. We just like to grow with the industry.”

Though Bounty’s big, it’s not a company that’s eager to do business with all the hustle and bustle that comes with being a public company. You know the drill: quarterly showmanship and an aggressive growth story to satisfy insatiable public investors.

That’s not to say that they’ve been resting on their laurels. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Bounty recently made a splash with its acquisition of The Bistro Group, first through the buyout of a majority stake from private equity firm Navegar, and later through the purchase of the minority stake held by A. Soriano Corporation (Anscor). Anscor said in October 2025 that it sold its 22% stake in TBG Food Holdings for around P1.91 billion. If you do the math, that puts The Bistro Group’s value to nearly P8.7 billion.

“We just acquired the Bistro, but the banks are supporting us on that. So we’re happy. So far, it’s going well,” Cheng told reporters. “We made the acquisition not because we want to sell them chicken, but we just want to make the whole integration stronger. So, in the end, it’s about extending the integration. And that’s the natural progression.”

Integration here is the magic word. Bounty already operates across the food chain — everything from feeds, farms, chickens, eggs, seasonings, processed poultry, to roasted chicken and affordable dining through Chooks-to-Go and Chooks Diners. But before Bistro, the missing piece had always been a full sit-down restaurant experience.

“We had take-away, but we didn’t have sit-down. [The Bistro Group] was available and we’re happy that we’re able to acquire it,” Cheng said.

Meanwhile, Bounty’s branded and value-added group head Edwin Chen told Rappler that they’re eager to grow the Bistro Group.

“We’re bullish. We’ll continue to grow that platform,” Chen said. “Even in this kind of economic situation we are in, people need to eat, right? And they value the Bistro Group offering. And that’s why they continue to patronize.”

Bounty is already known for affordable chicken, but having The Bistro Group under its belt also means it can target a very different kind of customer: diners willing to spend more than a day’s minimum wage on a meal, and in some cases far more at Michelin-starred restaurants. For Chen, that makes them less exposed to the squeeze felt by lower-income consumers when the economy weakens. (READ: Meet Siklab, the first homegrown Filipino resto of The Bistro Group)

“Sometimes people will downscale. So instead of going to provinces, they will just go to the mall because it’s hot outside. Of course, when you’re inside the mall, you eat. And of course, if we have good food, good service, that’s it,” he said.

Bounty plans to keep expanding Bistro’s restaurant count, although executives said there is no fixed target yet. The group is especially looking at growing standalone restaurants, not just mall-based branches.

Look out for more nuggets

As a family-controlled company, Bounty can resist the pressure to constantly maximize shareholder value and instead keep a tighter grip on the business it has built. That’s why the group itself owns and operates all Chooks-to-Go and Chooks Diners branches. No franchises, and no plans to allow franchising either.

As Bounty restaurant group head James Carreon put it: “It’s a very family-run business. Not because it’s traditional, but because I think we can control the standards, the team that works with it, the dishes, the chefs.”

Not being public also means Bounty can grow at its own pace without having to disclose growth figures every quarter.

“Every company needs to determine their growth. If they’re able to sell the product that they produce, then they’re okay,” Bounty Fresh Group CEO Cheng said. “The whole livestock industry are very responsible and we have been very responsible for the last few years. So that’s why we don’t overproduce, we also don’t underproduce.”

But even without an IPO injecting cash, the group has big plans.

For one, Bounty is expanding what it calls its “convenient food” business, or its prepared and ready-to-cook products such as chicken nuggets and tori burgers. The group already has a plant in Concepcion, Tarlac, but it plans to double capacity through an investment of around P800 million.

“Next year, hopefully, we can finish the construction and we can bring in the machines last quarter of next year. Then we can operate in 2028,” said Bounty branded and value-added group head Edwin Chen.

Part of that push is a new affordable chicken nuggets brand called Pipoy. If you haven’t heard of it yet, that’s because Bounty is still developing the product and bringing it to the market.

What’s Pipoy, exactly? Well, it circles back to Bounty’s roots of serving affordable food.

“Pipoy is tayo, mga masa. We the Pipoy,” Chen said. – Rappler.com