On Monday Israel’s Competition Commissioner declared the Wissotzky Tea Company (Israel) Ltd. as a monopoly owner in the green tea market and the market for herbal infusions. The commissioner’s office said the decision came after an investigation that began about a year and a half ago and after a hearing that was held for the company in recent months.
The competition authority said its inspection found that Wissotzky’s share in sales of green tea and herbal infusions to retailers is higher than 70%. And has what the commissioner called “significant market power” in green tea and herbal infusions that allows it to charge higher prices than competing suppliers.
Market power, it said, kept Wissotzky a stable dominance for many years. Due to market power, Wissotzky’s competitors found it difficult to increase their sales even in cases where they offered lower prices than those offered by Wissotzky and also in cases where new brands entered Israel that were successful abroad, alleged the commissioner.
Following the announcement, Wissotzky will be a “large supplier”, as the term is defined in the law for the promotion of competition in the food industry, and therefore from now on it will be subject to all the obligations imposed on large suppliers by virtue of this law regarding the declared products. These prohibitions include, among others, a prohibition to intervene in the arrangement of the shelves in the marketing chains, a prohibition to condition the sale of a certain product on the purchase of another product, a general prohibition on any type of intervention in the price of the product to the final customer in the chains and other restrictions that appear in the Food Law.
