Customers charging free vegetable stands
Tiberias vendors give away free vegetables
In protest of competing supermarket chains' continuing price war, city market merchants offer customers free vegetables, say this is only first phase of protest
Tiberias market vendors stepped up their war against supermarket chains in the northern city Sunday, as they took out hundreds of boxes of vegetables and offered them to customers free of charge.
"We are five-six merchants protesting against (supermarkets) Mega Bool, Super Zol and Rami Levy's price reductions," Ofer Znad, a local vendor, told Ynet.
"They sell vegetables for 70 agorot (17 cents). Cucumbers cost me NIS 3.8 (94 cents). How am I supposed to compete with those prices? They lowered their prices and screwed up Tiberias' market. Is this just?"
"This is not fair competition," he continued. "They are fighting among themselves and we are the victims. The families with the big money ruin the livelihood of a hundred families that make a living from the Tiberias market."
Znad continued to say that Sunday's free vegetable giveaway was just the first phase in the merchants' protest: "We will give out free goods tomorrow and on Tuesday as well, and we will not go vote. In the second phase well will give out our goods inside the supermarkets. If they want war, they will get one."
The war over consumers intensified after the Rami Levy Shivuk Hashikma supermarket chain opened in the outskirts of Tiberias six months ago.
"I work in a nearby office," a consumer by the name of Benny told Ynet, "I head rumors that they were giving out free vegetables. I went to the city market and saw an unbelievable sight: merchants taking out hundreds of boxes of vegetables and allowing everyone to take as much as they please, up to three bags per person."
Rami Levy of the Shivuk Hashikma supermarket told Ynet it was never his intention to harm market merchants' livelihood. "Our target was the big chains: Mega Bool, Shufersal and Shefa Shuk – who sold vegetables at prices too high for the residents of Tiberias and the surroundings, who earn average incomes and below.
"I am sorry if our coming to Tiberias to sell at low prices has harmed the market's merchants," he continued, "I myself started off in the Machaneh Yehuda market, and I know market vendors.
"They are hard working people. And we will continue to serve our customers loyally and sell at low prices."
