Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS handbook - Corporate Watch ...

27 A BDS Handbookin the UK, including Sainsburys, Marks & Spencer, The Cooperative, Tesco andWaitrose. It exports to 30 countries. Tesco and Marks & Spencers' own-branded dates areHadiklaim produce.Hadiklaim exports under the King Solomon Dates and Jordan River brand names and itsproducts are marketed by Almog Tradex. 63 The company boasts that its growers and packinghouses “have approvals from international standard setting bodies – ISO, BRC,EUREPGAP, Bio USDA and IFOAM – as well as the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture andthe Israeli Bio-Organic Agriculture Association.” Indeed, its produce is often certified asorganic in the UK market. But, though the company highlights its growers inside Israel, italso works from the illegal settlements of Beit Ha’Arava and Tomer in the Jordan Valley.Hadiklaim specialises in Medjoul dates, the kind most frequently used by Muslims forbreaking their fast in Ramadan. Boycott campaigns against Israeli dates have run for the lastfew years around the Islamic holy month. 64After consumers started to question the origins of Hadiklaim date boxes labelled 'Produce ofSouth Africa', it has come to light that Karsten Farms, a South African company, isexporting dates through Hadiklaim. Karsten Farms has an office in the UK and is anapproved supplier of grapes to Tesco. 65 By buying South African dates and repackaging themin Hadiklaim boxes, the company might think it can get round the boycott by confusingconsumers, while at the same time extending its trading period by exporting dates all yearround (as South African dates are harvested at a different time of year than Israeli ones).Consumers and activists should make it clear to Karsten and any other company workingwith exporters from illegal settlements that this trade makes them complicit in the occupationof Palestine and equally a target for the BDS movement. 66Mehadrin Tnuport Export (MTEX) is one of Israel's largest growers of fruit andvegetables with yearly sales of around $200 million, 70 per cent of which being for export.The company is set to gain from Agrexco's ill fortunes and may replace Agrexco as Israel'slargest exporter. 67 Mehadrin focuses on citrus fruits and is one of the biggest suppliers of theJaffa brand worldwide. The company also markets dates, grapes, avocados, potatoes andpomegranates. 68 MTEX is 100 per cent-owned by Mehadrin Group. Other subsidiaries ofthe parent company include Mehadrin Tnuport Marketing UK (100 per cent owned),MTEX Holland B.V (100 per cent owned), MTEX UK Food Service (100 per cent63 http://www.whoprofits.org/Company per cent20Info.php?id=688, [accessed 28/3/2011].64 See for instance http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/aug/04/israeli-dates-boycott-ramadan, [accessed28/3/2011].65 http://www.fruitnet.com/content.aspx?cid=2102&ttid=6&sid=355, [accessed 28/3/2011].66 For our full investigation into the Karsten Farms issue, seehttp://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/partnership-between-south-african-and-israeliagribusiness-fuels-apartheid/,[accessed 28/3/2011].67 http://www.jnews.org.uk/commentary/why-did-agrexco-go-bankrupt, [accessed October 2011].68 http://www.mtex.co.il/, [accessed 28/3/2011].