Richard Strauss

was founded in the 1930s as a commercial dairy by Richard and Hilda Strauss, German Jewish immigrants from Nieder-Olm who moved to Nahariya at the time of the British Mandate of Palestine. At first, the milking business wasn't successful enough so they started making cheese, which did become successful. In the 1950s, Strauss grew and began focusing on ice cream products, with about 50 employees in their Nahariya factory.

In 1969, after Groupe Danone purchased a part of the company's ownership, Strauss expanded from ice cream manufacture and began producing puddings and other individual packaged dairy desserts, the most popular of which was "Dani" and about 15 years later, "Milky". In 1975, Michael Strauss, son of the founders, became the CEO of the company.

In 1995, the company went into the prepared salads business. The Strauss hummus brand, "Achla", became very popular in Israel. In 1997, the company purchased 50% of the ownership of the Yotvata dairy. The same year, Strauss purchased Elite and grew to over 7000 employees and a US$1 billion/year turnover (though the formal merger between the companies occurred only in 2004). In 2001, Ofra Strauss, Michael's daughter, became the CEO of the company.

Strauss was labeled by the Israel Antitrust Authority as a monopoly in 2004,[2] a status that essentially places the company under government regulation limiting the way it can change the price of its products to protect the consumer and smaller competitors.

ריכרד (ד"ר לכלכלה)