A Dairy Tale
Called Monopoly

TANIA HERSHMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

he truck rolls a gleaming fat
cylinder into the delivery
bay. The air is moist and
slightly sour. Creamy pud-
dles stain the ground. Pipes are
attached to the truck, data enters
into the computers and, unseen
to the observer, fresh milk starts
streaming into large tanks.
After quality testing., pasteur-
ization, and removal of fat and
cream, the milk is sent around the
dairy to be transformed into an
assortment of dairy products to
be packaged and shipped out in
time for breakfast.
On the face of it, milk deliver-
ies elsewhere in the developed
world are much the same as those
at Tnuva's Tel Aviv dairy, one of
six such operations across Israel.
Yet in other respects the local
dairy industry is markedly dif-
ferent from its Western counter-
parts, most notably in its
domination by one company, the
71-year-old Thuva, which leaves
such competitors as Tara, Strauss

T

and Yotvata with marginal mar-
ket shares.
However, although it is the
fourth-largest company in Israel,
due to its cooperative structure
none of Tnuva's shareholding kib-
butzim and moshavim actually
pocket a significant chunk from
its sizable profits. In fact, despite
Tnuva's ostensibly solid market
position, scandal-embattled com-
pany leaders are anxious about
the company's future.
Israel's dairy industry's roots
go back more than a century,
when Jewish pioneers, who were
accustomed to their native East
Europe's fresh milk products, fil-
tered into Ottoman Palestine. De-
termined to make the land live up
to its biblical milk-and-honey rep-
utation, the settlers decided to en-
ter the dairy business.
There were obstacles, not the
least of which was the poor qual-
ity of the local cattle, due to cli-
mate and disease. European cows
were far superior in terms of milk

Tnuva's success is due to near-monopoly status.

yields, but that only applied
where they came from; in Israel
they just would not adapt.
And so, as would ultimately be
the case with many other eco-
nomic success stories in Israel,
the solution came in the form of
a crossbreed, after the Damascus

cow was crossed with black-and-
white Dutch stocks.
Several generations later, the
contemporary Israeli cow pro-
duces almost 10,000 liters of milk
a year, 25 percent more than U.S.
cows, and nearly twice as much
as Europe's. Yet while the Agri-

culture Ministry's Dairy Board
boasts that the local cow is the
envy of the world, that can hard-
ly be claimed about the local con-
sumer.
Israel is a very difficult market
for dairy products, says Liron
Tamir, head economist at the

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CC

58

Coupon Expires 7/27/96

205 South Main Street, Royal Oak..5474500
Limit one loaf per family. please.

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205 South Main Street, Royal Oak, (810)547-4500 • Tuesday - Saturday 7am-7pm, Sunday lam-3pm, Closed Monday.