A considerable amount of our food in Israel originates from overseas.
The WHO states there is a pandemic. This will result in severe global
trade and economic disturbances.
Inspection of the manufactured food on sale in Israeli
supermarkets shows an extremely large percentage is imported from overseas.
Such products are likely to become restricted in availability as a result of production
disturbances in the manufacturing countries due to the pandemic.
What is disturbing, as eagle eyed consumers notice, is no
indications of the country of origin of fruit
and vegetables on sale. We import tomatoes from Turkey, pears from South America, France and Spain, apples from Chile, USA, an pineapples from Peru and
so on. It is high time it was made mandatory for the shops to state both
country of origin and the product class as is practiced in Western countries.
It would then be up to the consumer to decide if they want to support home
grown fresh fruit and vegetables or imports, some from countries that denigrate
us in world forums. If we fail to support Israeli produce then with production disturbances a quarantine overseas a severe food shortage of fresh food could
result.
Copy of letter sent to Jerusalem Post 9 March 2020 - Not Published
