This inconceivable price point is the brainchild of Vitaly, the owner of "Vita Food Afula," who decided to combat the rising cost of living through extreme measures. Rather than enticing customers with standard sales, he established a price impossible to ignore. He insists this involves a 4.2-ounce (120 gram) beef patty, ground on-site and served with house pickles and sauces, offering no compromise on quality or size.

The true surprise, however, lies in the ingredients. In a venue where one might expect inferior meat, the kitchen delivered a patty crafted from a blend of Angus brisket, Angus neck, and Angus ribeye cap. These premium raw materials are typically the hallmarks of gourmet burgers sold across Israel for 70 shekels or more.

"The price is not intended to project cheapness, but to cause people to taste and understand that there is something different here," Vitaly explained.

When asked if this is merely a marketing gimmick, Vitaly was adamant. "This is not a promotional move," he said. "I am fighting prices as much as possible, and it is most important to me that people arrive, taste, and return." Regarding his business model – or lack thereof – he remained transparent.

"I am losing money on every order, and this is part of my calculation," Vitaly said. "I believe that if people discover the taste, they will return for dishes at a higher price as well." Vitaly addressed the potential stigma that such a low price might imply poor quality, expressing confidence that the flavor would resolve any doubts.

"Anyone who understands meat will immediately feel that these are quality cuts and true meticulousness," he said. "The price is intended only to cause people to stop, enter, and discover the place."

Ultimately, after the first bite, the single shekel becomes almost an anecdote. The burger proved to be juicy, balanced, and precise, easily competing with leading restaurants in the genre. While the price may sound like a joke, for Vitaly, it serves as a tool to invite the public to discover a small venue with massive flavor – one that succeeds in creating a culinary revolution before the receipt is even printed.

The post Angus beef burgers for 27 cents: Only in Israel appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

One of the favorite moments for Israelis just before they take off on another fun trip abroad is to sit down with a cup of coffee and a croissant after shopping at the duty free or enjoying a meal at one of the food outlets at Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Video: Tourists arrive at Ben-Gurion International Airport

For many travelers, this can amount to a significant expense before their vacation even begins, as airport food prices are much higher than those at chain outlets across the country.

An Israel Hayom comparison shows that various food items are more expensive if you buy them at Ben–Gurion International Airport than practically anywhere else in Israel, with the exception of items that are subject to price control: small bottles of mineral water, regular croissants, and more. These price changes can be substantial, starting at 3.3% and reaching over 30% for items not subject to airport deals.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Aroma

At Aroma, a renowned coffee chain in Israel, a small cappuccino will set you back 15 shekels (approximately $4.62 ) at the airport, compared to 12 shekels ($3.12) for those who prefer to sit down or 11 shekels ($2.86) for the budget-conscious who opt for takeout. The difference in price for takeout coffee between the airport and regular branches is a staggering 36.3%.

When it comes to enjoying a cappuccino and a croissant at Ben Gurion Airport, you'll need to dig deeper into your wallet. This combination costs 27 shekels (around $8.31 ) at the airport, while the same items at regular branches cost 31 shekels ($8). That's a disparity of up to 40%. This is because the airport branch doesn't offer such deals and you have to buy each food item separately.

Aroma issued the following statement: "Under the tender terms set by the Israel Airport Authority, the risk associated with the set-up costs, as well as the maintenance and operation costs, is significantly higher and is of a very different nature than any other branch. That is why there are price adjustments."

Burger King and McDonald's

Even visiting fast-food giants like Burger King and McDonald's will make you feel the sharp rise in prices at the airport compared to non-airport branches. A Big Mac meal costs 42 shekels (about $12.96 ), compared to 39 shekels at other branches, representing a 7.6% difference. A McRoyal meal at the airport comes at 52 shekels (approximately $16.05 ), whereas it's 49 shekels ($12.75)elsewhere, marking a 6.1% variance. Families with kids may find themselves paying 29.5 shekels (around $9.10 ) for a Happy Meal, compared to 28 shekels (7.28$) elsewhere, a 5.3% difference.

At Burger King's airport branch, the price disparity is noticeable. A Whopper meal costs 53 shekels (about $16.35 ) at the airport, versus 51 shekels ($13.27) at regular branches, a 3.9% difference. A Double Whopper meal is priced at 62 shekels (approximately $19.13 ) at the airport, compared to 60 shekels ($15.61) elsewhere, a 3.3% variation. Families dining with young ones might find a kids' meal costing 30 shekels (around $9.27 ) at the airport versus 28 shekels ($7.28) elsewhere, representing a 7.1% difference.

McDonald's issued the following statement: "The prices McDonald's offers at the airport are lower than the competitors at the site and we are proud to offer our high-quality cappuccino at the lowest rate in the airport: only 7.5 shekels ($1.95). The prices in the airport are 5% higher than what the chain's menu usually offers and are 50% lower than the gap allowed under the terms of the tender. These prices stem from the high rent at the airport, the cost of operating the premises for 24 hours a day, and the cost of shuttling the employees."

Burger King said the following: "The price difference is just a few shekels, stemming from the costs of operation and maintenance of the premises in the airport, which run 24/7, including on Saturdays, and holidays. That is why the prices there are higher than other branches. The chain will continue to offer the most attractive prices for its customers in all of its branches."

Ilan's and Cafe Cafe

Ilan's, another popular coffee chain, offers a glimmer of hope for those seeking affordable options at Ben Gurion Airport. A small cappuccino at the airport costs 13.7 shekels (approximately $4.23 ), compared to 14 shekels elsewhere, a modest 5.8% difference. Tuna salad at the airport goes for 44 shekels (around $13.58 ), whereas it's 42 shekels elsewhere, a 4.7% discrepancy. A pita with cheese at the airport is priced at 39 shekels (approximately $12.03 ), while it's 36 shekels elsewhere, an 8.3% difference.

Cafe Cafe, found in Terminal 1, surprisingly offers lower prices for select items. A classic toastie at the airport costs 40 shekels (about $12.34 ), significantly less than the 55 shekels ($14.31) charged at other branches. Tuna salad at the airport is 45 shekels (approximately $13.88 ), compared to 68 shekels ($17.69) at branches. Even a cheese bourekas at Ben Gurion Airport is just 17 shekels (around $5.24 ), slightly cheaper than the 18 shekels ($4.68) charged at regular branches. A chocolate pastry at the airport costs 17 shekels (about $5.24 ), compared to 16 shekels ($4.16) at branches.

Ilan's said the following: "The reason for the price disparities is the operating costs at Ben Gurion Airport, which are much higher. For example, employee shuttles for three shifts, which do not exist in other branches, the cost of working night hours, and the like. In fact, the price difference between Ben Gurion Airport and the chain throughout the country was supposed to be at least 10%, but we managed to reduce it even further."

A Lesson in airport economics

The substantial price differences between airport food outlets and their regular counterparts have not gone unnoticed by travelers. With Ben Gurion Airport projected to serve over 25 million passengers this year, the airport is planning to expand its dining areas with a multi-million-shekel investment. The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) has issued commercial tenders to attract coffee shops and restaurants to Terminals 1 and 3, aiming to enhance the dining experience for travelers and bridge the price gap.

As these changes take effect, travelers departing from Ben Gurion Airport may soon find more competitive and reasonable prices for their pre-flight meals, alleviating some of the financial burdens of travel.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Going to the airport? You might be shocked by the price of your meal appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Among Israel's 16 largest cities, Jerusalem has the worst quality of life according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

A CBS study evaluated residents' life expectancy, the density of housing, satisfaction with the cleanliness of the area, satisfaction with parks and green areas, and general confidence about the residential neighborhoods.

Kfar Saba, a city in central Israel with a nearly entirely Jewish population of over 110,400, scored the highest overall in the 51 areas that were assessed.

Tel Aviv, Israel's second-most populous city and the world's most expensive metropolis, ranked sixth. However, ,Tel Aviv led in terms of job opportunities as well as access to computers among schoolchildren.

According to the business daily Globes, the CBS divided up the cities in the study into three categories.

Above-average cities included Kfar Saba, Rehovot, Ramat Gan, Rishon Lezion, and Tel Aviv – all in central Israel – and the "capital of the Negev," Beersheba.

Holon and Petah Tikva were ranked "average," as was Haifa.

Cities ranked "below average" included Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem, Ashdod, Bnei Brak and Bat Yam.

While Jerusalem – Israel's largest city – ranked last overall, it scored higher than average in 18 of the measured areas. The capital's unemployment rate, residents' level of satisfaction with their neighborhoods, and access to computers drove its ranking down.

i24NEWS contributed to this report

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Jerusalem scores lowest on survey about quality of life in Israel appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The CPI has risen by 2.5% since the beginning of the year, closer to the upper margin of the government's inflation goal – between 1% and 3%.

Meanwhile, there were also significant price falls in culture and entertainment (2.6%) and clothing (2.1%).

The housing prices index, which is separate from the CPI, continued to rise in the July-August period, compared with June-July, climbing by 1.2%. Housing prices have risen 9.2% over the past 12 months.

During July-August compared with June-July, housing prices in Jerusalem rose by 2.5%, central Israel (1.9%), Tel Aviv (1.8%), southern Israel (1.1%) and Haifa (0.6%). Prices in the north fell by 0.5%.

In the 12 months prior to July-August 2021, prices in Jerusalem rose 10.7%, central Israel (10.5%), northern Israel (9.6%), Tel Aviv (9.5%), southern Israel (7.3%), and Haifa (6%).

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Consumer Price Index continues to rise, up 2.5% since January appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Economy and Industry Minister Amir Peretz were scheduled to depart for a two-day working trip to Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday to sign a bilateral free trade agreement.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The free trade deal between Israel and South Korea is expected to provide a major boost to bilateral trade, free from customs taxes.

In addition to the trade deal, representatives of both nations were scheduled to sign an agreement to double the funding for the Korea-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation, which supports innovative research and development projects conducted by Israeli and Korean commercial companies in cooperation.

Ashkenazi and Peretz were also slated to meet with South Korea's foreign and industry ministers as well as head of its national assembly and senior officials to discuss matters of geopolitics, the economy, and security.

South Korea is home to the 12^th-largest economy in the world. When the free trade with Israel is inked, it will become the first Asian nation to enter into an agreement of this kind with Israel, or any nation in the Middle East.

South Korea is already Israel's third-largest trading partner in Asia. When the agreement takes effect, over 95% of Israeli exports to South Korea will be exempt from customs taxes.

Ashkenazi said his visit to Seoul with Peretz marked the end of "several years of intensive work, both political and economic, by Israel to promote the free trade agreement that will strengthen Israel's economy and reduce the cost of living in Israel."

Peretz added that "South Korea is one of the world's leading economies and an important trade partner for Israel. The agreement will cancel the export duties, and I hope that Israeli citizens will benefit from less expensive cars, phones, and other equipment that arrives from South Korea."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Will landmark Israel-S. Korea free trade deal lower Israelis' cost of living? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The Economist has ranked Tel Aviv the world's fifth most expensive city in its Worldwide Cost of Living Survey. The newspaper conducted its annual examination of the cost of a basket of 138 essential products in 133 cities worldwide.

The benchmark for comparison is New York, which receives 100 points. Paris, Hong Kong, and Zurich were in a three-way tie with 103 points each, all ahead of New York in terms of cost of living. Singapore used to be at the top of the rankings but has moved down to 4th place as a result of the many foreign workers who left the country because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Osaka and Tel Aviv both received 101 points, tying for fifth place.

"The pandemic has transformed consumer behavior, as lockdowns and trends such as working from home have increased the prices of consumer electronics and meal-at-home kits have taken the place of restaurant dining for middle-class families," said Upasana Dutt, head of worldwide cost of living at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The data is also an assessment of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on prices around the world. The data reflects the effect of the virus on currency fluctuations around the world, including the dip in the US dollar; the war in Syria, which pushed Damascus to the bottom of the list; and US sanctions on Iran that catapulted Tehran from the 106th most-expensive city to the 79th in this year's report.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Tel Aviv ranked world's 5th most expensive city appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The deal has chiseled away at the monopoly held by Houston-based Noble Energy and Israel's Delek Group, which discovered and developed the fields, bringing prices down. The country is on track to phase out coal and derive nearly all its electricity from cleaner-burning gas and solar power by 2025, and is exporting gas to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

But the financial benefits have yet to trickle down to Israeli consumers, who continue to pay stubbornly high electricity costs even as oil and gas prices have plunged in recent years.

As the scramble for natural gas creates new alliances and rivalries across the eastern Mediterranean, Israel's experience shows that while big gas discoveries can yield geopolitical clout they don't always deliver the riches promised by politicians.

The government says the gas reserves have turned Israel into a regional player and solidified ties with two Arab neighbors. Israel has also teamed up with Cyprus and Greece for a planned $6 billion pipeline to Europe, strengthening its position as it prepares to hold rare talks with Lebanon this week over their disputed maritime border.

But the so-called EastMed pipeline has heightened tensions with Turkey and is fraught with political and logistical challenges. It could prove infeasible if gas prices remain low and Europe accelerates its shift to renewable energy.

At the time of the 2015 gas deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "hundreds of millions of shekels for education, welfare, health and for every Israeli citizen," but a hoped-for sovereign wealth fund has yet to materialize because revenues have been lower than expected.

Israel's revenues from oil and gas royalties have hovered around $250 million a year since 2015, less than 1% of the country's most recent national budget, of around $135 billion.

Prior to the 2015 gas framework agreement, a partnership between Noble and Delek was the main developer of the Tamar field, which went online in 2013, and Leviathan – one of the largest gas fields discovered in the Mediterranean – which went online last year.

The gas deal required them to sell two smaller fields, which were acquired by the Greek firm Energean in 2016. Delek must sell its share of Tamar next year, and Noble – which was recently acquired by gas giant Chevron – is required to reduce its holdings.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a driving force behind the 2015 agreement, says the restructuring of the industry has brought new contract prices down from more than $6 per million British Thermal Units to less than $4 per mmBTU.

"The reality is very clear. Prices today are much lower than they used to be before the framework," he said, adding that he expects a further drop of up to 25%.

That's true for new contracts, but the price Israeli consumers pay is still largely determined by a 2012 contact between Tamar and the state-run Israel Electric Corporation, in which prices are tethered to the US consumer price index and have steadily risen since 2015 to more than $6 per mmBTU, even as global prices have plunged.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

Orit Farkash-Hacohen served as the head of the Public Utilities Authority at the time the framework was being negotiated and was sidelined after arguing that the pricing mechanism was unfair to consumers. She had suggested prices be pegged to an international basket instead, and that Israel push for the change as part of the 2015 agreement.

Israel's antitrust commissioner resigned in protest after arguing that the 2015 deal would not bring competition to the market, and thousands took to the streets in demonstrations. Netanyahu was eventually able to push it through by citing national security considerations.

Farkash-Hacohen supports much of the framework, but faults the government for not renegotiating the main contract between the gas companies and the IEC.

"When you're dealing with an electricity monopoly you regulate its prices in order for it not to misuse its power," said Farkash-Hacohen, who was recently appointed tourism minister.

"In that sense it was a missed opportunity that unfortunately affected the cost of living of the people of the state of Israel."

Gabriel Mitchell, an energy researcher at Israel's Mitvim Institute, says Israelis are paying prices that are "wildly above" those available on the international market.

"One of the big issues that we're seeing now in 2020, with everything that's happened post-coronavirus and with the collapse of global energy prices, is that the average Israeli is paying somewhere between two and three times the amount for a unit of energy than is available on the global market," he said.

He and other critics point to the IEC's recent purchase of liquified natural gas on the international market for a lower price than it is getting from Israel's own fields.

The US Henry Hub price, seen as an international benchmark for natural gas purchases, has averaged around $2.75 per mmBTU over the past five years and fell below $2 after the pandemic caused a global drop in demand.

The price of the Tamar gas has steadily risen during the same period, and Israelis have seen little change in their electricity bills since 2015, with tariffs hovering around 14 cents per kilowatt hour.

When asked about the high prices enshrined in the Tamar contract, Chevron, which completed its acquisition of Noble last Monday, said it "firmly believes in the sanctity of contracts."

"These are very early days and as we continue to build relationships with all of our stakeholders in Israel, we are confident that they will see Chevron is committed to building trusted and mutually beneficial relationships," it said in a statement.

The Israeli government says the shift from coal to natural gas has been good for the environment. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal or oil, cutting down on air pollution. But the drilling and transport of natural gas results in the leakage of methane, which has 86 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In January, Israel began exporting gas to Egypt under a 10-year deal valued at $15 billion. In 2016, Noble and Delek reached a $10 billion agreement to export gas to Jordan over 15 years.

Israel's excess gas revenues were supposed to flow into a sovereign wealth fund for investment abroad, a path to riches used by other big exporters. The fund was supposed to be launched in 2018, but has yet to reach the 1 billion shekels ($290 million) required to begin investing.

Authorities hope to launch the fund next year. That's also when Delek is set to sell off its share of Tamar and when the IEC is eligible to renegotiate its costly Tamar contract. That should bring prices down, but Farkash-Hacohen says it should have happened much earlier.

"Why were they given full immunity of prices, and secondly, such a long period of time to divest their ownership?" she said.

The post 'Hundreds of millions' promised to Israelis under gas deal fail to materialize appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The city moved down one spot compared to the 2018 survey.

For the first time in the survey's 30-year history, this year three cities share the title of world's most expensive city: Singapore, Paris and Hong Kong.

The cost of living in all three was found to be 7% higher than in New York.

The annual survey gauges the cost of more than 160 products and services in more than 130 cities.

Los Angeles was tied with Tel Aviv at 10th place. New York was ranked seventh, along with Copenhagen and Seoul.

The post Survey: Tel Aviv world's 10th most expensive city appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.