The UK’s largest retailer has a shameful history when it comes to stocking produce grown in the illegal West Bank settlements. The company continues to sell Israeli produce, despite the demands of BDS campaigners. In 2007, UK activists entered the agricultural settlement of Tomer in the occupied Jordan Valley and […]
Settler greenhouses in Beqa'ot
Tesco stores stock a large amount of produce grown in the Occupied Territories and purchased from the Israeli state, including fruit and vegetables from producer Carmel-Agrexco. Israeli products stocked by Tesco include fruit juice, mangoes, avocados, grapes, stonefruit, dates,herbs, pickled cucumbers, Exquisa potatoes, mixed peppers (from Israel and a second country of origin), Barkan wine, Yarden wine, biscuits, cold meat, dips, Osem soups and cakes, snacks by Beigel & Beigel, Telma (soup mixes and cubes, noodles etc) and socks (Tesco’s own brand). Tesco sells products from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, many of which are exported by Carmel Agrexco. The company admitted sourcing ‘a number of products’ from illegal settlements, including avocados, herbs, grapes and stonefruit, such as peaches, from farms in the West Bank and Golan Heights. In 2006 War on Want reported that Tesco sells Beigel and Beigel products sourced from the settlements. Tesco also sells gas cylinders for products made by settlement company Soda Club, and repackages settlement dates from Hadiklaim as Tesco own brand dates. Mehadrin-Tnuport Export Company (MTex) supplies Tesco with settlement citrus fruit and there are links between Tesco and the Arava settlement company. In October 2007, a group of campaigners from the Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group entered Tomer settlement in the occupied Jordan Valley and photographed medjoul dates, packaged by Carmel Agrexco, labelled ‘Made in Israel’ and marked as bound for Tesco stores. (more…)
Here are the references for our 2020 update to Apartheid in the Fields P3. Introduction https://mondoweiss.net/2019/11/un-publishes-database-ofcompanies-profiting-off-human-rights-abuses-not-on-israel-but-myanmar/ P4. The ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley https://btselem.org/jordan_valley See, for example, https://corporateoccupation.org/2010/08/11/the-jordan-valley-meeting-point-the-jewish-national-funds-racist-alternative-reality/ https://m.btselem.org/jordan_valley http://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/reports/al-jazeera-how-israel-engages-in-water-apartheid/ http://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/reports/al-jazeera-how-israel-engages-in-water-apartheid/ http://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/news/tractors-and-water-tanks-confiscated-in-al-maleh/ http://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/jv%20map%20tony.jpg https://www.btselem.org/jordan_valley https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jordan-palestine-refugee-camps-photography-a8341826.html https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Nahal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalya Corporate Occupation has interviewed multiple Jordan Valley residents who were forced […]
Like its competitor Tesco, Sainsbury’s has previously sold produce that the supermarket knew was from illegal West Bank settlements. It continues tostock produce from Mehadrin. In 2008 activists took photographs of Sainsbury’s ‘SO Organic’ and ‘Taste the Difference’ Medjoul dates clearly labelled ‘Grown in West Bank’ inside the Jordan Valley […]
Hadiklaim date growers’ co-operative is Israel’s number one exporter ofMedjoul dates,[1] and one of the top global exporters.[2] The cooperative controls the King Solomon Dates and Jordan River brands.[3] Both brandsexport dates from the settlements in the Israeli occupied Jordan Valley.In 2017, Hadiklaim’s Yaniv Cohen told industry website Fresh Plaza […]
Miriam Shoham is an Israeli company, 50% owned by Mehadrin. In October2019, we photographed the company’s mangoes being sold in Aldi supermarket in the UK. According to the Palestinian/Israeli research centreWhoProfits?, Miriam Shoham’s mango packing house is located in theoccupied Golan Heights.[1] In January 2020 we also photographed Shoham pomegranates […]
Jaffa is a well-recognised global brand for the export of Israeli citrus fruit.The Jaffa brand name is owned by the Citrus Marketing Board of Israel, anIsraeli government institution.[1] Mehadrin is a leading supplier of fruit exported under the Jaffa brand.[2] We have found that Mehadrin exports fresh produce from Israel’s […]
Mehadrin boasts that it is “Israel’s largest grower and exporter of citrus fruits and vegetables”. It is a major supplier of the Jaffa brand, which has become synonymous with Israel’s agricultural apartheid policies.As well as being an exporter, it is a grower and owns 8,500 hectares of land.[1] Mehadrin has […]
