Rami Levy — the Greengrocer Who Declared War on Prices

By מערכת סופרקליר · 2026-07-09 · 2 min read

1976 — The year a small stall in the Machane Yehuda market began changing how Israelis buy groceries

Some names have become shorthand for "cheap." In Israel, one of them is "Rami Levy." But behind the sign is a real person, and a story that starts at a tiny market stall — and reaches all the way to the stock exchange, a mobile-phone company, and even household electricity.

From a market stall to a national chain

It all began in 1976. Rami Levy, a Jerusalemite who grew up in the Nachlaot neighborhood and started working young, opened a tiny shop — about 38 square meters — on Hashikma Street, at the edge of the Machane Yehuda market, in premises his grandfather had used before him. As Ynet tells it, he noticed that every product carried two prices: a high retail price and a low wholesale price. The insight was simple — sell to ordinary people at the wholesale price. That is how what's described as Israel's first discount grocery store was born.

Rami Levy's breakthrough wasn't a new product. It was a new price.

From that single stall grew a chain: a second store in Ramat Alon in 1981, and the first mega-store in Talpiot in 1992.

The formula: thin margins, big volumes

Levy's method was never complicated: earn a little on each product, and sell a lot of them. In 2007 the chain went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange — a step that marked its shift from a local chain to a national player. Today "Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing" is part of the TA-125 index, and according to ICE it closed 2025 with revenue of about NIS 7.84 billion — up roughly 6% — and is consistently counted among Israel's largest food retailers.

Not just a supermarket

The name "Rami Levy" has long since spread beyond shopping carts. In 2011 the group launched "Rami Levy Communications" — Israel's first MVNO (virtual mobile operator), with low prices that shook up the cellular market. From there it expanded into real estate, cafes, and in 2025 even into supplying electricity to private households. Levy was also a public figure: he served on Jerusalem's city council from 2003 to 2018.

"The price watchdog"

Levy's public persona was built around fighting prices. That occasionally put him in the headlines: after industry executives spoke in late 2021 about an expected wave of price hikes, the Competition Authority opened an inquiry — which was closed in March 2025 with no indictment against Rami Levy or Osher Ad.

And where does that leave you?

Rami Levy's story is really a story about your buying power. Superclear's data shows that Rami Levy is indeed consistently in the group of Israel's cheapest chains — well below the national median. In other words: the idea from 1976 still works. The only question is whether the branch nearest you actually delivers on it — and that's something you can check.

Sources