Dairy giant Strauss announced on Sunday that it would be reducing the prices of 36 of its products, at rates ranging from 5% to 10%.
Among the products whose prices will be reduced are the company’s Achla brand of Hummus, Shokolad Para (chocolate with the trademark cow logo) and Turkish coffee.
The latest reductions are in addition to a previous reduction of between 6% and 17% of the prices of 18 of the company’s products.
Israel’s food manufacturers have been under pressure, especially by student organizations, to lower the prices of their products. The students have threatened several companies with boycotts, a fact which caused the companies to lower prices.
In October, Strauss lowered the price of white cheese by 12%, and the price of its ‘Milky’ chocolate treats by 8%. Another dairy giant, Tara, followed suit. Both companies dropped their prices after rival company Tnuva did so, when faced with a boycott by students.
The boycotts of food products began over the summer with a boycott of cottage cheese which was launched as a Facebook campaign and quickly escalated. The success of the cottage cheese campaign led to other foods and companies being targeted.
Meanwhile, Strauss has also announced that in addition to lowering prices, it will also improve its employees’ working conditions.
The company has announced a series of steps that will reduce the number of the company’s employees that work through manpower companies. Instead, the employees will work directly for Strauss.
In addition, Strauss will freeze executives’ salaries for this year, provide extra compensation for workers with low levels of income, and provide 100 scholarships to children of employees for academic studies.
According to Zion Balas, CEO of Strauss Israel, “We have been planning these steps since the beginning of the social protests this past summer. We realized that it is not enough to reduce prices and that we should also look at our 6,000 employees. We looked at all our working plans and we are preparing to make the necessary adjustments to fit the new economic reality. Today we announced a further reduction of prices of the company’s products in a variety of categories.”