 Hello, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell and this channel covers videos about Jerusalem and Israel There's one brand name that's on everybody's lips in Israel at the moment and that is Carrefour If you haven't heard about them before, Carrefour is a huge French grocery chain, aka supermarket network Carrefour operates 12,000 stores throughout the globe and is the world's ace largest retailer by revenue Making it pretty massive. It operates stores in 30 countries throughout the world and more than half of its revenue is now generated from outside of France More importantly for Israeli customers, Carrefour is known for its affordable products and its own label goods helping consumers to shop affordably Tomorrow, Tuesday, Carrefour is holding a nationwide coordinated launch of its new stores in Israel Describing the stores as new however might be a tiny bit misleading Carrefour's entry strategy to Israel involves tapping into an existing chain of supermarkets in order to launch its own stores In order to open a network in Israel Carrefour signed a memorandum of understanding last year with Israeli consumer giant electric consumer products under the terms of the MOU Supermarkets that had previously operated under two different brand names Yenot Bitan and Super will become Carrefour stores Around the same time Shufasal inked a tentative agreement to bring spa to Israel Meaning the two internationally recognized grocery stores could soon be gracing Israel's towns and streets During the intermittent period of the franchise agreement between Carrefour and Electra The supermarkets retained their original names Yenot Bitan and Super but have begun stocking Carrefour branded products However, this will change on Tuesday with the new roll out when the stores will fully shift over to the Carrefour store branding The scale of Carrefour's plans to set up and ramp up operations in Israel are pretty impressive On Tuesday nine Carrefour's will open in Tel Aviv Four in Herzliya, three in Bersheva, three in Ashdod, three in Haifa and one in Ramatbe Takerim Which is outside of Jerusalem, as many as 100 new stores are expected to open throughout the country by year end So why is all this significant? The arrival of Carrefour into Israel will mark the first time that an international grocery chain has decided to make a large-scale bet on breaking into the Israeli market Of course, there are plenty of international franchises operating in Israel There is McDonald's, Zara and Decathlon to name three, but so far we haven't seen an international supermarket chain break in here This might be because Israel presents unique challenges for retailers given the requirements for goods to be kosher Acceptable to Jewish dietary standards. At 10 million Israel is also considered a relatively small market in the big scheme of things For prospective global retail giants such as Walmart, for example It's easy to understand how these two factors taken together might seem off-putting. The requirement for stiffer competition in the Israeli food sector However, is definitely there. Israel suffers from a chronically high cost of living and the high price of basic food stuffs is a major component of that. In fact, it was anger at this very dynamic that sparked a wave of national protests in 2011 Which took the rallying call as the unacceptably high price of cottage cheese, which is considered a basic daily staple by many Israelis The problem extends way beyond cottage cheese though. As I showed in a previous video It's cheaper to buy olive oil in Ireland where there are literally zero olive trees than in major Israeli grocery stores Where olive trees might be literally growing in the car park Consumers are already reporting that the introduction of car for products has exerted downward pressure on the price of some basic consumer staples like olive oil in Israel. A Major cause of the high cost of living in Israel is government policies that have shielded Israeli companies from foreign competition Resulting in the establishment of monopolies and oligopolies who can set prices artificially high This economic policy intended to shield Israeli companies from the effect of bigger foreign players is usually known as protectionism But it runs contrary to Israeli governments embrace a free market capitalism Which doesn't usually endorse such tactics. Beyond the immediate effect It might have on prices at Israel's main grocery chains Shufrasal and Rami Levy The arrival of car for into the Israeli market may prove to be a successful case study Which encourages other foreign retailers beyond those in the food sector to take a chance on serving this market Needless to say not everybody is thrilled to see the French giant coming to Israel If two Israelis have three opinions, then it's safe to say that about car for they're probably going to be four Some are worried the car for will be able to tap into economies of scale that Israeli supermarkets simply cannot Forcing other supermarkets to make unrealistic price cuts in order to keep competitive Many worry that the pain will ultimately be felt by suppliers In other words the livelihood of small Israeli businesses may be harmed by the foreign entrant Either way like millions in Israel I'm personally extremely excited to check out the opening tomorrow And if I can convince someone to allow me to record a video and trust me I've been trying I'll give you guys a look at the shelf layout the prices and the product selection in the new branch in Jerusalem. I hope this video has been worth your time Thanks for sticking around with it until the end and if you'd like to receive more videos from me Then please do consider subscribing to this YouTube channel until next time