The $55.43 million factory in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel is expected to employ 150 people.
(February 20, 2019 / JNS) Israeli food manufacturer Osem Group announced on Tuesday that it has inaugurated a new manufacturing plant for its popular peanut-butter-flavored snack Bamba.
This will enable the company to double the manufacturing capacity of the snack.
“Our dream is to see Bamba in every supermarket in the U.S. and in Europe,” said Osem CEO Avi Ben Assayag at the opening of the new facility in the southern town Kiryat Gat.
The $55.43 million factory is expected to employ 150 people.
Osem has been negotiating with Swiss-based Nestlé, the largest food and beverage company in the world.
Bamba, an Israeli childhood and nutritious staple, is credited for reducing Israel’s peanut-allergy rates since it first sold in the 1960s. The treat also comes in a strawberry flavor.
A 2015 study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health “involving hundreds of babies under a year old at high risk for developing peanut allergy, established that kids could be protected by regularly eating a popular peanut butter-flavored Israeli snack called Bamba. A follow-up study later showed those kids remained allergy-free even after avoiding peanuts for a year.”
Of course, many people cannot eat Bamba if they already suffer from existing peanut-based allergies.