Our "New Contract" for cutting the cost of living
Israel is one of the most expensive countries in the developed world. Food and consumer goods cost more here, hitting everyone’s pocket, and the most vulnerable hardest of all. Israel ranks 5th among OECD countries on the food cost-of-living index, with prices roughly 33% above the OECD average.
The average Israeli family spends about NIS 3,200 a month on food, roughly 18% of its spending. Bringing food prices down to the OECD average would save Israeli families about NIS 8,000 a year.
The market is concentrated and uncompetitive, centrally planned and outdated, and choked by excess regulation and import barriers that keep products out of Israel.
This reality is not fate. It is the result of prolonged mismanagement. Slashing the cost of living in Israel does not require more committees, more price controls and more excuses. It requires bold, creative moves and leadership that neither depends on nor fears powerful interest groups. That takes a prime minister who owes no one anything and is ready to wage all-out war on the monopolies and the centers of market concentration responsible for high prices.
Our “New Contract” for lowering the cost of living will bring thousands of new products from around the world onto Israel’s shelves, bringing wider choice, competition that drives prices down, and greater purchasing power for every one of us.
What's the problem?
Israel has become one of the most expensive countries in the world for food, with prices about 33% above the OECD average.
This happens because the Israeli market is not competitive: mega-corporations of importers and manufacturers squeeze out competition and effectively control every shelf in the supermarket at once. The same conglomerate can own brands with monopolies in the cheese fridge, the frozen chicken freezer and the frozen vegetables aisle. This makes retailers dependent on the big manufacturers and importers, gives those players excessive bargaining power, and blocks other companies from growing and competing.
Shufersal too acts as the dominant market leader and effectively controls the retail sector: nearly half of its branches are local monopolies. Irrational import barriers and centralized management by the Ministry of Agriculture and cartel-like production boards only make things worse.
The result: excess bureaucracy, fewer products on the shelf and higher prices for the consumer. The Israeli public is held captive by limited choice and inflated prices that make life in this country unbearably expensive.
What's the solution?
Under our “New Contract”, we will put an end to the cost of living problem. The solution is clear and practical: competition, competition, competition.
We will break up the monopolies, end market concentration, and stop giant corporations from controlling multiple food sectors at once. We will open Israel to international competition by removing import barriers, adopting European standards and regulatory responsibility under under a single Food Authority.
We will abolish tariffs and instead give direct support to the farmers who are crucial for Israel’s food security and national security. We will break the Rabbinate’s Kashrut monopoly through automatic recognition of international kosher certification (“what is kosher in Europe is kosher in Israel”).
This will take time, but within three years the price of the Israeli shopping basket will fall by 30%, down to the average level in developed OECD countries.
of market share held by the ten largest suppliers in the food market
Shufersal has almost three times more branches than its next-largest competitor
NIS - average monthly food expenditure of an Israeli family
How we will know we've succeeded
The basket test
The average shopping basket in Israel will cost about the same as the average basket in the OECD.
The shelf test
In every supermarket, dozens of new brands will appear on the shelf, competing with the existing monopolies.
Bennett's plan to lower the cost of living
Break up the monopolies. Open Israel to competition. Strengthen our farmers. Break the Rabbinate’s Kashrut monopoly.
01
Break up the monopolies and end market concentration
We will dismantle mega-monopolies along the entire production and supply chain, from the factory and the port all the way to the shelf. A large importer will not be allowed to distribute more than one brand with a monopoly; monopolies will not be allowed to control several different sectors. For example: Tnuva will not be able to control dairy, poultry and frozen vegetables all at the same time.
02
Eliminate needless bureaucracy and encourage entrepreneurship
We will cut regulation, remove import barriers, and establish a central Food Authority: one clear, simple and fast address for importers and manufacturers. We will embrace the principle that what meets European standards meets Israeli standards, and we will use the Competition Authority decisively and without compromise. For example: today, to import lettuce into Israel, you have to go through three different bodies – the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Chief Rabbinate. We will unify the process under one Food Authority that cuts bureaucracy and opens the market to competition.
03
Cut food prices and strengthen our farmers
We will strengthen Israeli farmers and Israeli agriculture, bringing them into the 21st century and to the technological forefront so that instead of fearing international competition: they win it. We will support our farmers with direct government funding and invest in technological innovation on the ground, helping them become tech entrepreneurs on their own land and improve production even further. We will free successful farmers from archaic production limits, and do everything needed to reduce tariffs on agricultural produce and open the market to imports for consumers’ benefit, without harming our agriculture and our farmers.
04
Break the Rabbinate’s monopoly and open up the Kashrut market
It makes no sense that a product that is kosher for a Jew in New York or Paris, under strict international supervision, gets blocked by bureaucracy that has nothing to do with halacha. We will recognize international kosher certification and let retail chains fill the shelves with thousands of kosher, affordable products.
The bottom line: fewer monopolies, less bureaucracy - more money left in your pocket.
Q&A
The average Israeli family spends about NIS 3,200 a month on food, its biggest expense after housing. An identical family in the OECD pays 700 shekels less a month for the same shopping basket. That’s another after-school activity for a child, a dental treatment, the electricity bill, and some savings.
Because behind many different packages often stand the same large companies. Our market is exceptionally concentrated: the ten largest suppliers hold about 50% of sales, and large companies simultaneously control several categories and several brands that were supposed to be competing with each other.
That is why the market needs real reform from the bottom up, not another temporary “sales promotion.” We will change the structure of the market itself: we will require transparency from the monopolies so we know where they profit at our expense, and we will break them up so that they can no longer control every shelf in the supermarket but can focus only on a single field. That is how we will increase competition, expand variety and bring prices down.
Even when a small supplier makes a good, affordable product, it still has to reach retail chains nationwide. In practice, distribution networks are often controlled by the large suppliers themselves. So a small supplier ends up leaning on the very player it is supposed to compete with – for transport, for distribution, and sometimes even for its trade agreements with retailers.
We will build an alternative: the state will encourage a private, equal-access, nationwide distribution network, alongside a ban on monopolies using their distribution networks to block competition. In addition, monopolies will not be allowed to manage small suppliers’ trade agreements with retailers. The goal is for a new supplier to be able to reach the shelf without asking permission from the player that controls the market.
The problem today is not only that regulation is suffocating, but that it is scattered across several bodies: health, agriculture, kashrut, standards, imports, plant protection and more. An importer trying to bring a product into Israel can get stuck between multiple regulators, duplicate requirements and long processing times. Entrepreneurs are afraid to enter – it’s too complicated – and we are left with only the existing manufacturers and importers.
A central Food Authority turns all of this into a single address: one body that concentrates powers, shortens procedures, prevents duplication and makes it possible to import a product that meets Western standards without opening a special track just for Israel. We will unify food regulatory powers under one roof, take over the relevant powers from the Ministries of Agriculture and Health, and enable the import and production of diverse, high-quality food at lower prices.
The barrier is a combination of tariffs, standards, licensing procedures, kashrut, labeling requirements, plant-protection requirements, the cost of adapting to a small market, and long processing times. Israel imposes absurd tariffs such as 212% on milk powder and 85% on some fruits and vegetables, alongside regulatory demands that make certain imports unprofitable even when they are permitted. For example: a tomato cannot be imported unless its stem is removed first, which significantly shortens its shelf life; grapes may be imported only from Peru and South Africa, and the tariff on them depends on the month the shipment is released from the port, so a bureaucratic delay can raise the tax and the price to the consumer; imports of frozen vegetables are restricted by strict microbiological requirements that do not match accepted European practices and require a separate production line just for the Israeli consumer.
For the consumer, the meaning is simple: if importing is hard, the product never arrives; and if it does arrive, it is expensive. That is why the plan proposes gradual tariff reduction, fixing the plant-protection regulations, and expanding the principle of “what is good for Europe is good for Israel” – so that regulation genuinely guarantees safety and quality instead of serving as an excuse to block imports.
Because even when a kosher product meets European regulatory standards and could enter Israel through a shortened import track, the Israeli Rabbinate Kashrut bureaucracy can push it back onto a unique Israeli track: a separate production line, labeling allowed only at the moment of production, and requirements and restrictions on certain ingredients. Thus the obligation to present a kashrut certificate from the Israeli Rabbinate empties parts of the “what’s good for Europe is good for Israel” reform of substance, because it forces adaptations that raise production costs and make importing less worthwhile. The proposed change is to move Kashrut supervision to the level of the certifying Kashrut body, rather than re-checking every product and every importer. In other words: if an international kashrut body meets the criteria, products it certifies as Kosher will be recognized automatically as Kosher in Israel.
The old policy protects agriculture through import quotas and central planning, meaning the consumer pays more at the checkout to sustain the sector. And the price is not only at the checkout: fruit and vegetable production in Israel has not grown in 20 years, despite population growth and the needs of the economy. Israelis eat fewer fruits and vegetables simply because there aren’t enough. We will replace this model with direct support for farmers: grants based on land area and crop type, investment in mechanization and digitization, an agricultural R&D fund, professional training, and permission for complementary land uses such as renewable energy, storage, sorting, packing and direct-to-consumer sales.
We will not abandon farmers to competition, but neither will we keep prices artificially high. Farmers will get the tools to become more efficient and profitable, and consumers will get a wider supply and lower prices.
The production boards are an old mechanism that runs parts of agriculture as a planned market: quotas, licensing, influence over prices and sector-wide coordination. In effect, this is a state-sanctioned cartel in sectors such as fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, honey, wine and others. The result is less competition, less innovation, less growth in supply – and, in the end, fewer fruits and vegetables at prices consumers can afford.
