For several months now, cottage cheese has become a highly sought-after commodity. Not because its consumption has necessarily risen, but because its supply is low to nonexistent. The shelves of marketing chains are empty of cottage cheese. There are chains that, in order to fill the empty shelves, scatter other dairy products there, just so it looks full.

At Tnuva, they explained the shortage as a logistical problem that began weeks ago and for which a solution has not yet been found. It turns out that the problem is indeed logistical, or more precisely, in the transportation and warehouse system. The malfunction is not in the production line at the Alon Tavor dairy, which continues to produce cottage cheese as usual, but rather in the automatic warehouse that is supposed to release the pallets to the distribution trucks. The cottage cheese is produced, packed, and ready for marketing, but a large part of it simply fails to leave the dairy and reach the supermarket shelves.

According to sources familiar with the details, the malfunction in the automatic warehouse system has been going on for more than a month. This is a system that manages the movement of pallets inside the warehouse and their release to trucks. Repairing the malfunction requires the arrival of technicians from abroad, but due to the security situation, they refuse to come to Israel, and therefore the handling is delayed.

Meanwhile, they are trying to provide a response there through manual operation of part of the activity, but this is a limited solution. At the same time, since the beginning of the year, demand for dairy products has risen by about 4%, partly because fewer Israelis traveled abroad due to the security situation. Dairies explain that the high demand and the gaps that have been created since the Shavuot holiday make it difficult to replenish stocks, and therefore any logistical delay is felt immediately on the shelves.

Contrary to periods when suspicion of an artificial shortage arose against the backdrop of an update to the target price mechanism, which affects all dairy product prices, this time the situation appears to be different.

The ongoing shortage has also raised claims against Tnuva, according to which it allegedly has an interest in creating an artificial shortage of cottage cheese, in order to increase demand for other dairy products it produces. In the industry, these claims are rejected outright.

"What interest could Tnuva have in not selling cottage cheese?" says a source familiar with the details. "After all, on every container it earns money, and when the cottage cheese is not sold, it loses. The company has nine factories across the country, and every day malfunctions can happen.

"This is a computer malfunction, and the company Dematic, which operates it, refuses to send a technician to the country due to the security situation. Since the dairy is mostly automatic, it is impossible to bypass the system manually, otherwise they would have done it long ago, so a situation has arisen where there is no problem producing the cottage cheese, only it cannot be supplied."

And what about a shortage of white cheese and milk? Ordinary yogurt is also barely seen in the supermarket.

"There is no such shortage. During the war period, when the institutional market closed and moved to the private one, a shortage was created that was completed. In yogurt, Tnuva is not a leading player in the market anyway."

If such a shortage is created, perhaps dairy products should be imported from abroad.

"No one predicts such malfunctions, and certainly importing cottage cheese is out of the question, because it is not possible. Cottage cheese is not produced abroad. The attempts to import milk were also unsuccessful, and the same goes for yogurt."

So when will cottage cheese return to the shelves? At this stage, no one is committing to a date.

"Tnuva's computer personnel are working around the clock to overcome the malfunction. They estimate there, with due caution, that within two weeks we will return to supplying the ongoing demand. Because our people are sitting on the matter, and I hope it will open up. Apparently, less cottage cheese will be supplied this week, with the hope that at the end of next week regular supply will begin, but the shortages will be filled only in a few weeks."