The rewards of one Zionist dream

SIMON GRIVER ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE

Ofra Strauss embodies the Zionist equivalent of the American dream. Her grandparents, Dr. Richard and Hilde Strauss, fled Nazi Germany and set up a small family farm in Nahariya, north of Haifa, in 1936. Today, Ofra Strauss serves as chair of the Strauss-Elite Group, Israel's second-largest food enterprise, with annual sales of $850 million US. She's also ranked 45th in the Forbes list of the world's most powerful businesswomen.

A national celebrity, Strauss is frequently featured in Israel's gossip columns. She is more admired and has a softer image than Galia Maor, Bank Leumi's president (the only Israeli ranked by Forbes as a more powerful businesswoman than her) and Shari Arison, the owner of Bank Hapoalim, who is ranked by Forbes as the country's richest woman. Maybe it's because Strauss is associated with food, rather than banking.

With a law degree from Tel- Aviv University, Strauss left Israel after graduating with her then-husband Dan Lahat, son of former Tel-Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat, to live in New York, where she worked for Estée Lauder for five years. The couple returned home to raise their family in Israel and Strauss entered the family business.

The Strauss family built its empire on dairy products. Richard, a doctor, and business-minded Hilde wanted a new start in the Palestine of the mid-1930s and decided to build a dairy in their backyard, where Hilde would made cheeses for the locals.

The dairy, however, was also used for a more surreptitious purpose – the Strausses, who were active in the pre-state underground movements, would meet groups of "illegal" immigrants on the Nahariya seashore and hide them in their cowshed from the British Mandate authorities, before safely transferring the immigrants to nearby kibbutzim.

Meanwhile the business grew and Strauss, as it was now called, began distributing its cheeses throughout the Haifa area. In the austere early '50s, however, the company encountered difficulties, compounded by stiff competition from the fast-growing kibbutz-owned Tnuva company. The Strausses took the strategic decision to move out of cheeses and focus on a new but promising market – ice cream. By 1962, Strauss was flourishing and with their son and daughter, Michael and Raya, in the business, they decided to take over a former ice block factory (ice block distribution to chill food had succumbed to the growing penetration of electric refrigerators) at the southern entrance to Nahariya.

Michael and Raya Strauss transformed the family business into a flourishing nationwide food manufacturer and Strauss became a household name in Israel during the 1960s.

When Nahariya Dairy Strauss Ltd. celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1986, the company was a market leader in ice cream, yogurts and other dairy delicacies (including cheeses – cheese production had been reintroduced) and enjoyed sales of $50 million US per year.

It was during the 1990s that Strauss emerged as a global corporate entity. To leverage their know-how, strategic partnerships were forged with international giants Danone, who acquired 20 per cent of Strauss's dairy division, and Unilever, who took a 50 per cent stake in the ice cream division. Then, in 1996, Strauss bought a controlling stake in Elite, the country's biggest manufacturer of chocolate and coffee. This was a major coup for the Strauss family – at the time, Elite's annual sales of $580 million US were nearly double those of Strauss.
Shortly after the acquisition, Michael Strauss stepped down as chairman and president, leaving the newly formed Strauss Elite Group in the hands of his eldest daughter, Ofra, whom he had groomed as his successor.

Many senior executives in the company (Strauss is dominated by former Israel Defence Forces officers) felt that the job would be beyond her. But her low-key style of management, which revolves around delegating most responsibilities to her senior generals while making strategic policy decisions herself, combined with excellent financial results, have earned her grudging respect from both her executives and her competitors. Arik Raichman, president of Tnuva – now Israel's largest food manufacturer and still Strauss's main rival – paid her a backhanded compliment: "Of course, she would not have got where she has if not for the family," he said, "but she is very good."

By 2004, Ofra Strauss had fulfilled her first major target – the merging and streamlining of Strauss and Elite into a single corporate entity. The fruits of this policy were felt when Strauss-Elite reported a $35 million US profit for the year, making the company one of Israel's most profitable enterprises.

The company has acquired well-known local brands such as Yotvata (dairy drinks) and Yad Mordechai (honey, olive oil and jam), Energy (cereals) and Max Brenner (chocolate). Strauss has also expanded into the chilled salads market and has a strategic partnership with PepsiCo Frito-Lay for salty snacks.

Above and beyond business, Ofra Strauss supports feminist causes and social action groups to help the disadvantaged and is also committed to advancing Israel-Diaspora relations (she sits on the Jewish Agency's board of governors).

Now that Strauss has consolidated the company's domestic base, it is beginning to expand overseas (international sales now account for 15 per cent of the company's income). Elite is already the world's eighth largest coffee manufacturer and the market leader in coffee throughout eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The company also has a strategic alliance with Italian espresso market leader Lavazza. It controls some 70 per cent of the local chocolate market and has turned to international markets for growth, including supplying chocolate to British supermarket chain Sainsbury.

Richard and Hilde Strauss established Strauss as a small local business and Michael and Raya Strauss transformed it into a national enterprise, but Ofra Strauss's corporate vision has made Strauss-Elite the market leader it is today.

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