Honey to Get Cheaper for the Holidays as Agriculture Ministry Opens Duty-Free Import Quotas

Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security will allocate quotas for the import of 400 tons of honey duty-free through a competitive process. Under the move, being carried out for the fifth year, the size of the quota assigned to each marketer will be affected by the price it has committed to offer consumers, meaning a lower price will win a larger quota. Accordingly, the first-place winner will be entitled to up to 20% of the total quota, 80 tons, and the remainder will be distributed in tiers among the other winners at rates of 15%, 10% and 5%, according to their ranking.

In last year’s competitive process for allocating honey import quotas, six entities won, including five retail chains, Rami Levy, Osher Ad, Yohananof, Carrefour and Victory, as well as an importer that markets the honey to the Half Chinam chain, at an average price of 18.7 shekels per kilogram. That is an average price lower than the one recorded in the 2024 competitive process, which stood at 19.8 shekels per kilogram. In 2023, the average price per kilogram of honey in the process was 18.6 shekels, and in 2022 it was 21.5 shekels per kilogram. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, as of 2025 annual honey consumption in Israel stands at about 6,500 tons, and peaks during the Tishrei holidays and in the winter months.