Yogurtland Franchising Inc.’s Phillip Chang is mindful of the balance between sharing and oversharing.
The founder and CEO of the frozen yogurt chain and recently launched new food concept Holsom (focused on customizable bowls, toasts and drinks) has always been devoted to philanthropic efforts, although he’s largely remained mum over the years on the specifics.
In fact, Chang had even stepped away from the business—ranked No. 15 among OC’s largest restaurant chains with an estimated $133 million in 2019 sales across nearly 270 restaurants—in 2014 to focus on charity work and supporting children in need.
“Lately, inside the company we talked about why not [share this publicly]?” Chang said in a recent interview with the Business Journal. “We don’t share anything, ever. So, I shared a little story [with employees] one time [about] one of the things we did and everyone inside the company was shocked like ‘Oh, my. OK we’ve got to share this story.’”
That conversation was the impetus for the Yogurtland Cares non-profit focused on helping women and children, Chang said. Still, he remains mindful of just how much he wants to discuss publicly, declining to say how much Yogurtland has donated to charities over the years.
“We don’t want to boast about all this activity,” Chang said. “It’s over 20 years I’ve been doing that, sharing millions of dollars out there, but I really want to be careful about not boasting.”
