 Welcome back to my YouTube channel, I try to share interesting things here about Israel and Jerusalem. As I mentioned in an earlier video, French supermarket giant Carrefour announced a nationwide rollout across Israel this week. The French grocery chain, which is one of the 10 largest retailers in the world by revenue, is entering the Israeli market through a franchise agreement with Yanot Beitan, a subsidiary of Electric Consumer Products. By opening in Israel, Carrefour has become the first major international grocery chain to launch a supermarket network in Israel. Carrefour is popular throughout the world for its competitive prices. Many in Israel are therefore hopeful that the arrival of the chain will help to lower Israel's high cost of living, which includes the cost of many basic staples. Altogether, 50 Carrefour stores opened in Israel today, with as many as 100 more are set to open by year end. Nine stores opened in Tel Aviv alone. I went to visit the only Carrefour in Jerusalem today, which is located in Ramat Bet Haqerim, an urban neighborhood in South Jerusalem. Before I share my impressions of the store and its prices, I want to offer a couple of disclaimers. Firstly, I visited this Carrefour branch on the day when it formally became part of the Carrefour network. It's reasonable to assume that this was a busy and stressful time for the store as it was sort of like a reopening day for it. Secondly, the product selection I'm showing is of course only the one that I found in the Jerusalem Carrefour at the time that I visited. And finally, I'll be mentioning equivalent prices between shackles and euros at a few points throughout this video. Like all exchange rates, the shackle euro rate is in a constant state of fluctuation, so the prices I'm sharing here might be outdated or rather have changed by the time you watch this video. With that out of the way, let me share some candid thoughts. I'm sorry to say this but overall, I thought that the average prices on offer at the Jerusalem Carrefour were somewhere disappointing. Carrefour representatives have given interviews saying that they're in the process of getting a wide range of own brand products certified kosher. This likely explains why I didn't see that many of them on the shelves today. Instead, I saw lots and lots of familiar Israeli products, many of which result at the typical and somewhat inflated prices that contribute to the high cost of living here. Let me share some examples. At 6 shackles and 20, Carrefour is selling milk from Israeli giant Tanuva at basically the same price as you can find in just about any other Israeli supermarket. I'm not saying the paying about 1 euro 50 for a liter of milk is a bad deal, simply that this is an obvious dairy staple which Carrefour hasn't been able to bring its own brand product to market yet. Let's jump over to the fresh orange juice section. Here I was disappointed to see the familiar Prinav Israeli orange juice being sold at 20 shackles a liter which works out to just under 5 euro at today's exchange rate. Bear in mind of course that Israel is a Mediterranean country which exports oranges around the world. Again, I have no idea whether Carrefour plans on launching its own brand of orange juice but this is another breakfast staple that right now would be just as cheap to buy at your average Shufrasal or Ramilevi. It would be neglectful of me to mention a video about the cost of living in Israel without mentioning the famous cottage cheese which was the rallying cry for the major social revolution against the cost of living in Israel in 2011. If for no other reason than symbolism, I thought the Carrefour could have launched their own variety of the dairy staple. Instead they were simply selling regular old Israeli cottage cheese for the regular old Israeli cottage cheese price of about 7 shackles that's 1 euro 70 a tub. It's actually slightly cheaper at the mini market across the street. People on Facebook groups have been curious to know whether Carrefour intends bringing its own brand products to market which also have kosher certification. The good news is that they certainly do, although as we saw on the dairy section they don't seem to have brought many of those products to market in time for their launch this week. But here's one example, an oat milk from the Carrefour Bioreg that also bears a kosher certification called a Hecksher. Sadly there was more disappointment in store for me in the dairy aisle. I was disappointed to see that there wasn't a single Carrefour cheese on the shelves at least as far as I could tell. Instead the low fat sliced cheese that I purchased because I have no gallbladder was available for its regular price of about 16 shackles which comes in just shy of 4 euro. Again this is a staple product I think we could really use a cheaper alternative to in Israel. In the spice department we saw Carrefour underselling a competing as ready brand with better prices on ready filled spice dispensers. Now let's get into my pet peeve of olive oil. As I mentioned previously it's generally cheaper to buy olive oil in Ireland where there are literally no olive trees than in Israel. Carrefour Israel launched its website today that's at Carrefour.co.il. They show that Carrefour is selling its own brand olive oil for 11 shackles 50. That's just a little less than 3 euro again at today's euro shackle rate. While it wasn't on the shelves at this particular branch of Carrefour I put that down to incomplete stocking. So let's take this as a positive. Olive oil prices may finally be coming down in Israel. In the frozen pizza aisle we had more disappointment in store. I'm not endorsing subsisting on a diet of supermarket purchased frozen pizza even if I did that myself during my college days. But here again we saw a missed opportunity for Carrefour to launch some competitive own brand products. Again I'm not privy to their product pipeline so it's possible that these are on the way. But all they had to offer in Jerusalem today and on their new website was frozen pizza selling for about 5 to 7 euro. Some positives. Carrefour looks set to bring a bit of a shake up to the frozen veg section which is another of the long list of products that are mysteriously more expensive in Israel than in other countries. On a gram for gram basis these beans were cheaper than the market leader. However, given my fondness for throwing some frozen chips into the air fryer whenever I get the midnight munchies I was disappointed to see that there were no own brand or discount frozen fries. Prices on alcohol, wine and beer weren't really extraordinary and the deli meat section essentially just featured regular Israeli products at regular Israeli prices. On the positive side the self-checkout experience was pleasant and I was offered the option of putting my phone number into the machine in order to save a bit of paper. Needless to say products and the self-checkout machine were labelled in Hebrew. Israeli supermarkets have a well deserved reputation for being kind of grimy so I was pleased to see that Carrefour seems to have opened its Israel journey with good standards of hygiene. The aisles in the Jerusalem branch were wide and pleasant. You could say that my overall impression of the Carrefour was a little disappointing. If they're truly going to put a dent in the cost to living in Israel then they need to seriously focus on bringing competitively priced own labelled product goods to market in my opinion. Otherwise they're simply another grocery store selling overpriced goods to frustrated Israelis with no better options for their frozen pizza and cheese. Thanks for watching and if you shopped at a Carrefour today also let me know your thoughts and comments.