Strauss extends holiday food discounts until end of year

Food manufacturer meets with leaders of consumer protest campaign following threat of new boycott if prices not dropped by 30%.

By NADAV SHEMER
Strauss logo (photo credit: Courtesy)
Strauss logo
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Embattled food manufacturer Strauss will extend holiday discount prices on its products until the end of the year, the company announced Wednesday following a meeting with leaders of a consumer protest campaign.
Calling Tuesday afternoon’s meeting “cordial and genuine,” Strauss CEO Zion Balas said the company had “found a new way to make another contribution to the effort to reduce prices, on top of those price reductions we have already made.”
RELATED:New boycott targets Strauss, others
Strauss and fellow dairy manufacturers Tnuva and Tara have been the primary targets of ongoing protests over food costs since a nationwide consumer boycott was launched in June over the price of cottage cheese.
Protest leaders turned their attention to Strauss this week, threatening a fresh boycott against the company if it does not lower its prices permanently by 30 percent, after Tnuva announced that it was lowering the price of basic dairy products by up to 15%.
Balas promised Wednesday that the announced price reduction was not the end of the company’s commitment to consumers.
“We will continue to deal with this issue in the coming months and years and will continue to turn over every stone in order to find possible solutions, with the aim of making things easier for consumers by matching our offers with today’s prevailing reality,” he said. Balas added that all links in the food supply chain must act for prices to remain low, beginning with the government’s removal of the 16% value-added tax.