Tnuva was once as Israeli as you could get. Owned by kibbutzim, its products filled vast swathes of supermarket shelves. Its flagship brand – 5% cottage cheese – was a staple of the local diet, served at breakfast, at snack time and even at lunch and dinner. But a consumer rebellion erupted across Israel this summer and Tnuva has become its Marie Antoinette.
The latest shopper assault against the company got underway last week when the student unions of Tel Aviv University and 13 other institutions of higher education called a nationwide boycott of the company’s products. Days later, the Calcalist economic daily reported that sales of Tnuva products in the major supermarket chains had dropped as much as 11%, while sales of its rivals rose.
Tnuva is fighting back with discounts and a media campaign. At the Mister Zol supermarket in downtown Jerusalem, shoppers are enticed with an offer of two containers of cottage cheese for 10 shekels, down from the regular price of 5.90 (it was eight shekels before the first protest began). Shoppers get a free Tupperware container to boot.
“When the boycott went into effect, they lowered the price,” said a cashier of a Jerusalem grocery, who asked not to be named. “My sales of Tnuva’s products – all of them, not just cottage cheese – fell while my sales of Strauss products went up. They’re both discounting, but Tnuva hasn’t been helped by it.”
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