Ofra Strauss: New factory in north is our response

“I hope that at the end of the year we will open the new factory that we have been building for the past three years in Ahihud. After three years of construction, several hundred million shekels that we have invested in technologies and people, a year of construction under war, we are opening a new factory on the Michael Campus that will produce plant-based products,” Strauss Group (TASE: STRS) chairperson and controlling shareholder Ofra Strauss, announced today (Wednesday) at the “Returning to the North” conference organized by Globes at the Galilion Hotel in the Upper Galilee.

Strauss noted that the company is in the final stages of building the new factory to produce fresh plant-based milk and its products (yogurt, delicacies, etc.), not far from Strauss Dairies in Ahihud (near Karmiel).

“To open a new factory in 2025 after a three-year investment, construction under fire and postponements due to the war because people from abroad are not coming, is part of the construction of the new north,” Strauss said, adding, “Anyone who is an industrialist understands what is the significance of opening a new factory in Israel, with its technologies, it is a green factory. We are telling the other side that we are building and growing. In this we are better than others, in construction and growth.”

Strauss stressed that the north is home for her. “It’s only natural for me to be in the south and in the north. This is where I grew up and was born, and this is where I come to work. Strauss products are found all over the country. It doesn’t matter where you are in the country, it’s a different connection. Our anchors at Strauss are our factories in the north and the south, and it’s a connection with the strongest statement, because when we build a factory, it’s for 80-90 years. There’s something about construction that’s an anchor, it’s strong,” she said, adding on a personal note. “I don’t travel to the north, I’m here all the time. I’m from the north, I’m originally from Nahariya. Throughout everything that’s happened here, the trauma of leaving the houses and returning to abandoned homes, the fires and the destruction – I’ve been here. My aunt always says that we can leave Nahariya, but Nahariya doesn’t leave us. What she means is that it’s part of our character. I live in Tel Aviv, but I’m a Nahariya resident living in Tel Aviv.”

The task – to rebuild homes

Strauss opened her remarks with a prayer for the return of the hostages, the fighters, and all those evacuated from their homes, and noted that homes must now be rebuilt, from the ground up. “The home is the task now. To rebuild the home – not to restore, not to put plaster on. In order for those who return home, the hostages, to truly return home, it must be built on strong foundations. A house is not just the building and the physical side – it is the family, the society, the values. On the values that we are so proud of as Israelis, we need to build this thing.

It doesn’t sound natural to me even when I say it today, but now is the time. On Sunday (when the female hostages returned) something new began, and on its foundation we need to build the house for those who return, for our children and for ourselves.”

Full disclosure: The conference was organized together with Bank Leumi and sponsored by Strauss and Dorel

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 22, 2025.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.