Butter Crunch Spurs Companies to Import More

A pricing crunch in the Israeli dairy industry has left supermarket shelves nearly bare of butter.

Tnuva and Strauss have stopped producing butter because they claim the price fixed by the government has eliminated their profits and any incentive to make butter, according to Globes on Tuesday.

Strauss doesn’t make butter but has recently begun importing butter of the Danish brand Lurpak.

All three dairies are currently considering bidding for the excise-exempt tender issued by the Ministry of Economy and Industry and are expected to submit requests in the next few days before the tender closes on Wednesday, Globes said.

Due to a severe shortage of butter in the past three months, the Ministry of Economy and Industry has approved excise-free imports of 1,437,500 kilos of table butter and 1,650 tons of butter for industry.