Wooing Israel With 26-Cent Chicken And a Decade-Old Nokia
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Four decades ago, Rami Levy arrived every weekday morning at dawn to hawk produce at Jerusalem’s open-air market. The work wasn’t lucrative, but as a school dropout from a poor family, he couldn’t complain.
Today, Levy still rises before dawn to sell food, and continues to do it without complaint. Now, though, he’s head of a company with 32 supermarkets across Israel and his net worth tops $500 million. This year, the Rami Levy chain became Israel’s top supermarket operator by market value even as sales remain less than a third of those of leader Shufersal Ltd.