As manufacturers, we are aware of our influence over the environment and take full responsibility for it. We believe that adopting an approach of environmental responsibility will help preserve a lasting environment for the coming generations. For us, this is a goal and challenge in reducing our negative effects on the environment, and at the same time increase the awareness of our team regarding this critical issue.

Our obligation to the environment is reflected, first and foremost, through enhancements to our management structure and procedures dealing with the environment. We recently appointed an environment manager whose overall responsibilities include the creation and integration of our environmental policy throughout all our business units in Israel, and ensure it being upheld.

In addition to our central management restructuring, four of our factories have already achieved the international ISO 14001 certification, and other factories and logistic sites will begin the certification process at the beginning of 2009. As part of this process, our business units identify the legal requirements with regard to their activity and track this process through the ongoing definition of goals and creation of operational plans to improve our influence on the environment. In the coming years we plan to include the rest of our business units in this process.

In 2007, we invested $930,000 in environment-related activity at Strauss, with $790,000 being invested in operational, technological and infrastructure expenditures in Israel that are connected to this process.

In 2008, we significantly increased our investments in this area to include the construction of a sophisticated sewage facility in our dairies that did not only improve the quality of sewage being discharged to the local sewage but also allowed taking advantage of the gas that was generated from germ fermentation that helped reduce energy costs for the factory, and also upgraded the sewage facility in our snacks factories in Sderot and Zefat.

In 2009, we intend to invest in waste recycling systems for our coffee factory in Zefat, as well as a system for producing energy from coffee waste, and to significantly upgrade the sewage facility in Nazareth.

The environment we operate in is made up of many perspectives. This is why we decided to focus our efforts on the following activities:

* Intelligent use of water and preservation of this vital resource.
* Reduction of energy consumption in order to reduce the rate of polluting emissions and greenhouse gas to the air.
* Reduce the organic load directed to the sewage system in order to minimize damage and pollution of the land and water resources.
* Intelligent waste management, with a continual increase in the quantity of waste going to recycling and reuse.
*Reduction of the environmental influence caused by product packaging through reducing the thickness of packages and use of surplus packages.

Our activity to preserve the environment stems from our ideological perspective that is the very foundation of the company. To us this is not just talk, but rather a conscious step toward preserving ours and our children’s future. It is abundantly clear nowadays that only a responsible, focused and dedicated effort to preserve the environment will ensure that future generations will be able to continue to enjoy the wonderful world we inhabit.