For almost two years now, Israeli consumers have no way of knowing whether they will find butter on the shelves in their supermarkets. What began as a temporary shortage became a permanent one. Even limited amounts of butter on the shelves have become a rarity, and the butter tends to fly off the shelves almost as soon as those shelves are stocked.

Awareness of the shortage only exacerbates the situation. When butter does appear in the shops, consumers purchase much more than they plan to use. One advantage of butter, compared with other dairy products, is that it has a long shelf life, meaning that consumers can buy it in bulk. In response, some shops have introduced “rationing,” limiting the purchase of butter to just 200 grams (7 ounces) per customer. In some way, this is reminiscent of the period of austerity in the early days of statehood in the 1950s.

There are several reasons for this shortage of butter, including a decline in local manufacturing, a decline in imports and an increase in consumption. According to data provided by StoreNext Ltd., most importers failed to take advantage of high caps on the amount of butter they could import, and actually cut back on butter imports from overseas.

The reason for this is economic. While the price of butter increased 140% on the international market in 2017, Israeli importers were required to sell butter locally at a controlled price (3.94 Israeli shekels per 100 grams, or $1.14), meaning that imports were not worthwhile economically. At the same time, dairy products manufacturer Tara cut its production of butter by 50% in 2018, and by another 80% in the first half of 2019 alone. What this means is that while Tara produced 416 metric tons of butter in 2017, in 2019 it produced just 28 metric tons.