Naftali Bennett Promises to Break Up Tnuva and Cut Food Prices 30%. We Checked: That Gap Already Exists Today

By מערכת סופרקליר · 2026-07-24 · 4 min read

₪4.90–₪14.90 — Superclear's chain-to-chain price range for the identical Elite (Strauss) milk chocolate bar, 100g, as of July 2026

"We will cut prices by 30% because we will break up food-market monopolies in Israel like Tnuva, Strauss, Diplomat, Shestowitz and Shufersal — what was will not be." That's how former prime minister Naftali Bennett, now chairman of "Yachad" — the joint list he formed with Yair Lapid ahead of the 26th Knesset elections — announced his cost-of-living economic plan on June 30 (N12/Mako). The promise: a 30% cut to the food and toiletries basket, saving a family roughly ₪8,000 a year. We don't fact-check election promises for a living — we check prices. So we took the company names Bennett said he wants to break up, and checked what's already happening to them, today, in the price data we collect from every chain.

Concentration is documented, not just rhetoric

On one point it's hard to argue with Bennett: concentration in Israel's food market is well documented, and not by him. A State Comptroller report from November 2024 found that across 20 food categories, three suppliers alone control 85% of sales (Calcalist). Maariv, which surveyed that report and additional findings nearly a year later, listed individual categories where concentration runs even higher: roughly 99% of the sour-cream market, about 93% of instant coffee, and around 87% of breakfast cereal — each held by the same three leading companies. Maariv also documented the result: instant coffee rose 26% between 2022 and 2025, Coca-Cola 50%, Barilla pasta 33%, Heinz ketchup 26%, Ferrero's Nutella 25% (Maariv). That's the real backdrop Bennett is riding.

What Superclear checked: three products, two companies, nothing broken up

Bennett frames breaking up companies as a precondition for lower prices. But Tnuva and Strauss — the first two names on his list — already sell their products at wildly different prices from chain to chain today, with no regulator touching their ownership. We checked three products, in the price data Superclear collects from every reporting chain:

Tnuva white cheese, 5%, 250g — a price-controlled product. Across more than 1,600 stores nationwide, it sells for between ₪4.75 and ₪5.87 — a gap of roughly 24% between the cheapest and priciest chain. This is a product where the state actually caps the price.

Tnuva white cheese, 3%, 250g — no price control. Same company, same basic product, no ceiling: the range opens up to ₪4.80–₪7.90 — a gap of about 65%, more than double the controlled version.

Elite milk chocolate bar (a Strauss brand), 100g. Here the gap jumps to roughly 204%: from ₪4.90 at the cheapest stores to ₪14.90 elsewhere — triple the price for the same bar, from the same manufacturer, under the same barcode.

The takeaway isn't that concentration doesn't matter — it does, and price control on the regulated cheese does compress the gap by roughly a third compared to the unregulated version. But it also means the part that already depends solely on the shopper — no monopoly broken up, no legislation, no Supreme Court petition — is enormous. Nobody needs to dismantle Tnuva to save the difference between ₪4.80 and ₪7.90 on the same cheese. You just need to know which chain sells it.

The promise versus the track record

Even Bennett's critics aren't dwelling on whether concentration is a problem — they're dwelling on whether 30% is a real number. Bizportal, which covered the plan the day after it was unveiled, wrote plainly that the target "sounds very ambitious, perhaps more than necessary," and noted that breaking up monopolies requires legislation, strong regulators, a fight against an aggressive lobby from the companies involved, and a legal process that can drag on for years without triggering shortages along the way (Bizportal). Kipa, two days later, reminded readers of the record: Bennett's earlier "Singapore Plan" produced limited results, and his promise of a million shekels for the family of a reservist killed in combat also fell short of what was pledged (Kipa). The promise itself also lands against a specific political backdrop: it came barely two months after Bennett and Lapid announced they'd merge into "Yachad" ahead of an election in which the two parties are running together under his leadership (Haaretz).

The bottom line

We have no tools to judge whether "Yachad" will make it into government, and no interest in doing so. We do have tools to check prices — and they say two things at once. First: the concentration Bennett cites is real, documented in an official State Comptroller report, not invented for a campaign. Second: the specific target he's putting a number on — a 30% cut, ₪8,000 a year — is a promise with no published calculation behind it, and one that requires breaking up ownership structures that even his more sympathetic critics describe as a years-long process. In the meantime, on an actual product on an actual shelf — not future legislation — the gap between the cheapest and priciest chain, for the identical barcode from the identical manufacturer, already runs into tens and hundreds of percent. That part you can fix today, without waiting for any monopoly to be broken up.

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