The Price 'Freeze' Is Real. So Is the 8% It Froze in Place.
By מערכת סופרקליר · 2026-07-23 · 4 min read
₪17.70–36.90 — The price of the same 250g tub of Piraeus Bulgarian cheese across Israel's chains today — the exact product a national price survey flagged as climbing from ₪17 to ₪24. Superclear data, July 2026
It's easy, these past few months, to think the war on the cost of living has finally been won. Israel's June 2026 Consumer Price Index was flat versus May, annual inflation eased to 1.6%, and food prices rose just 0.4% over the month (Calcalist, Walla). Chains and suppliers like to call this a "price freeze." But a freeze is not a discount. It's just a promise that the high price you already paid will stay high.
The freeze that hides a jump
The number that actually matters isn't what happened this month — it's what has accumulated since 2024. According to a survey by the Lobby 99 advocacy group, revealed in Globes, which analyzed more than 40,000 products from 19 food companies from early 2024 through the first quarter of 2026, food prices (excluding fresh produce) climbed about 8.1% — roughly one and a half times the pace of the CPI over the same period.
Broken down by year, the story tells itself. Per that survey, prices rose more than 7% on average in 2024, the pace moderated to about 2.5% in 2025, and in 2026 it nearly stopped — under half a percent. In other words, the 2026 "freeze" the headlines are celebrating is a freeze at a level that had already jumped roughly 8% in two years. The wave stopped; the water never went back down.
Who led it, and against what
The Lobby 99 survey also points to who drove the climb. According to Globes, at the top of the list were the beverage maker Laimon Schlisel (about 12%) and the Central Bottling Company (about 11%), followed — with double-digit increases of their own — by Strauss, Willi Food, Tnuva, Unilever and Tempo.
What makes this harder to swallow is the macro backdrop. The shekel strengthened and import costs fell — yet, per the survey, supplier price lists still moved in only one direction: up. Lobby 99 puts it plainly: the consumer feels no relief at the register, despite the stronger shekel and lower import costs.
The product the survey flagged — on our shelf
This is where Superclear's own data comes in. One product the survey named explicitly is Tnuva's Piraeus Bulgarian cheese 24%, which per Globes climbed from about ₪17 in early 2024 to about ₪24 — a jump of nearly 40%.
We checked that exact tub (250g) in our current data, as of our latest scan: 1,098 price listings across 29 chains. The median price today is ₪28.60 — higher, in fact, than the ₪24 the survey attributed to the supplier, because a retail margin sits on top of the supplier's price. And the spread between chains is enormous: from ₪17.70 at a Shufersal branch (the lowest we found, likely a one-off promotion) up to ₪36.90 at City Market. Same cheese, same barcode — more than double the difference.
That's the full picture the macro index misses: the price wasn't just "frozen" high, it's also scattered across a range in which your choice of chain is worth more than any "price war" ever declared over the shelves.
And it isn't only cheese. We also checked the Blue Band spread (200g) — another product the survey flagged as having risen — and found it in 26 chains at anywhere from ₪5.10 to ₪7.90, a gap of more than 50% on the identical pack.
The ratchet keeps clicking
Even in 2026, the "freeze" isn't really total. According to Globes, ahead of June 2026 most dairies updated prices in the wake of a rise in supervised-dairy prices: Tnuva pushed its butter (which is not price-controlled) up about 5%, and Strauss updated its dairy line by about 0.61% on average, effective June 1. These are a few percent each — but they add to the pile, they don't offset it. Prices rise fast and fall slowly, if at all.
What you can actually control
So if the strong shekel never reached the shelf, and a "flat" index only locks in a high level — what's left for the shopper? The one arena where the difference is real and immediate is which chain you pick. Superclear's priciness index, which compares an identical basket across chains, shows a vast gap between the extremes: Osher Ad runs about 20% below the national median, while Yellow sits about 31% above it. Rami Levy and Yohananof hover around 14% under the median. On a monthly basket, a gap of roughly 50 points between the cheapest and priciest is worth hundreds of shekels.
The 2026 "price freeze" is real — but it's a freeze at the peak. The relief the strong shekel and cheaper imports should have delivered simply never reached the checkout. What is in your hands is not to wait for the next "war" declared over the shelves, but to check where that same tub of cheese costs ₪17 instead of ₪37.
Figures are current as of Superclear's latest daily scan (July 23, 2026) and reflect prices the chains themselves publish. A single low price may be a one-off promotion.