Israel Waived Tariffs on 400 Tons of Honey to Hit ₪16.6 a Kilo for Rosh Hashana. We Checked the Shelf: the Same Jar, Same Barcode, Runs ₪19.90 to ₪54.90

By מערכת סופרקליר · 2026-08-19 · 4 min read

₪19.90–₪54.90 — Superclear's price range for an identical 500-gram badatz-certified honey jar — same barcode — across the chains we track, as of August 19, 2026: a roughly 176% gap, while the government commits to a weighted-average price of just ₪16.6/kg on its duty-free honey import quota ahead of Rosh Hashana

Three weeks before Rosh Hashana, Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is touting a move that sounds simple: a duty-free import quota of 400 tons of honey, meant to bring the average consumer price down to ₪16.6 per kilogram — a drop from an average of about ₪18.7/kg last Rosh Hashana. We checked Superclear's own data for what's actually happening on the shelf, and the gap between that promise and reality turns out to be much wider than one headline number can capture — even before you compare one chain to another. The timing isn't incidental: the UN FAO's global food price index hit its highest level in more than three years in July 2026, per Walla! Finance — so this domestic honey intervention lands against a backdrop of rising global food costs, not falling ones.

What the state actually promised

Per Davar Rishon, the Agriculture Ministry ran a competitive tender to allocate a 400-ton duty-free honey import quota, capped at consumer packages of up to 1.5kg, specifically to cool honey prices ahead of the holiday. The lower the consumer price an importer or retailer commits to, the bigger the quota slice it wins. Ten bids were submitted and nine winners were selected: Yohananof, Rami Levy, Victory, Carrefour (Global Retail), Netiv Hesed, and several smaller importers — Marom Food, K.N Market Warehouses, Selected Agricultural Products, G. Williford International and Alaska Importer (Agronet). The winners' weighted-average committed price: ₪16.6/kg, with individual prices ranging ₪14.7-18.9/kg (Bizness). Per Davar Rishon, Israel consumes roughly 6,500 tons of honey a year (about 650-700 grams per capita), against domestic production of about 4,000 tons a year from roughly 124,000 hives — meaning this quota covers a bit over 6% of annual consumption, not the market as a whole.

What that means per kilo, on the actual shelf

To check what that means in practice, we picked two honey jars Superclear can measure precisely per kilogram — because the quantity field in our data matches what's printed on the package. The first: a 700-gram jar of "Yad Mordechai" honey, Israel's leading domestic brand, with a 40-56% market share per Davar Rishon. At Osher Ad, Israel's single cheapest chain on Superclear's own priciness index (20% below the national median), the jar sells across 24 branches for ₪27.90-29.90 — roughly ₪39.9-42.7 per kilogram. Even at the country's cheapest chain, the per-kilo price runs roughly double the ₪18.9 ceiling the government's own winning bidders committed to.

The second data point: a 1kg jar of natural honey from Emek Hefer Beekeeping Cooperative — one of the three major players in the domestic honey market, per Davar Rishon, with roughly 20% market share. In Superclear's data it's sold exclusively at Shufersal, across 205 different branches, at prices ranging ₪34.10-43.50 per kilogram — a roughly 27.6% spread between Shufersal's own branches on the identical barcode. Even the cheapest price we found for that jar runs nearly double the top of the government's committed price band.

Same jar, same barcode — a 176% gap

Then there's the gap between chains themselves. We checked a 500-gram jar of badatz-certified honey from the "Me'ula" brand — the exact same barcode — across several chains. Shufersal sells it for ₪19.90. Netiv Hesed — uniformly, across all 91 branches we track — sells it for ₪20.90. Ma'ayan 2000 also charges ₪20.90. City Market ranges ₪29.90-39.90. And Politzer, uniformly across all 5 branches we track, charges ₪54.90 — almost triple Shufersal's price, a roughly 176% gap between the cheapest and priciest chain we found. On a smaller format — a 350-gram Yad Mordechai squeeze bottle — Rami Levy, itself one of the tender's winning bidders, sells it for ₪20.90 (about ₪59.7/kg), King Store for ₪22.90, Netiv Hesed for ₪22.90-23.50, and Tiv Taam for ₪23.90 — even the cheapest price we found here runs more than three times the government's per-kilo ceiling.

To be precise about what we can and can't claim: we have no way of confirming whether these specific jars are the ones covered by the duty-free import quota — most likely they aren't, since the quota applies to specific imported honey that the nine winning bidders committed to sell cheaply. But that's exactly the point: the government program touches a narrow slice of the market, and every other jar of honey on that same shelf — including at some of the tender's own winning retailers — sells for well above the price the state is publicizing.

The bottom line

The duty-free import quota is a real policy, not an empty gesture — 400 tons of honey at a lower price is 400 tons Israeli shoppers won't pay import tariffs on. But it adds up to roughly 6% of annual consumption of 6,500 tons, not a transformation of what most Israelis will actually pay for a jar of honey this Rosh Hashana. If you're buying honey this month, the number worth remembering isn't ₪16.6 a kilo — that's what the state promised for one narrow slice of the market. The number worth remembering is that on the exact same jar, same barcode, the price can swing by 176% between chains — and that holds true whichever chain you check, not just the one running the ministry-backed promotion.

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