Consumer prices for essential goods in Israel are continuing to rise and this week they are expected to skyrocket, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported Tuesday night.
Among the items targeted for price hikes are cereals, chocolate, toiletries and hygiene products, cleaning products, dairy products and canned goods.
One supermarket chain, however, plans to fight the wave: Shufersal has announced that it will not comply with suppliers’ demands to raise prices up to 20 percent – and by November 1 (Election Day), by 25 percent.
Suppliers plan to punish the chain in response with a ban on deliveries to Shufersal, beginning Wednesday, so for those who shop there – be prepared for shortages.
Some of the other supermarket chains have said they will approve some of the price hikes after carefully examining each individual product – but the smaller chains may have no choice but to raise prices in compliance with supplier demands.
It’s not yet clear whether consumers will allow the price hikes to pass quietly, or boycott the companies behind the move, as they did in the 2011 “cottage cheese boycott.”
The “Diplomat” distribution firm (Pampers, Ariel, etc.) is raising its prices by 15 percent, according to the report and may raise them even more on November 1.
The Tara dairy company raised its prices on Tuesday by five percent. Kimberly Clark raised its prices by 9.6 percent.
On November 1, Unilever plans to raise prices by 20 percent; the Gad dairy firm plans a price hike of nine percent, and Sano plans to raise its prices by up to 25 percent, Channel 12 reported; this will be the third price hike from Sano in the past 18 months.
This past summer, prices soared in the Jewish state, with the cost of essentials ranging from bread to electricity in some cases rising by more than 20 percent.
Kimberly-Clark to Raise Prices on Basic Household Goods, Increasing Israeli Angst
The office of Prime Minister Yair Lapid announced in late July that by December 2022, the price of basic bread will increase by 21 percent “for three months only.”
Consumers were warned they may also see another price increase next year as well, because all types of bread are to be removed from supervision in April 2023.
Another Major Food Importer to Raise Prices
In mid-July, Kimberly-Clark announced it would raise prices the following month by up to 9.6 percent, with new prices taking effect on August 14.
The price of electricity and water also rose this past summer. Electricity rates rose for the second time this year; water and sewage rates rose in July, as did the price of gasoline — for the fourth time since the start of this calendar year — although gasoline prices were later reduced.
Israel’s Apartment Prices – Highest Jump in a Decade
Food and household products distributors likewise raised their prices this summer as well — among them the same distributors now demanding additional cost hikes.
The price of real estate has also skyrocketed; apartments were costing 17.8 percent more in July than they did 12 months earlier.
