Israel’s so-called “cornflakes law,” which will make it easier to import food with the hope of creating more competition on supermarket shelves and lowering food prices, is due to go to the parliament for approval by next month.

The law will only apply to non-sensitive food from a health perspective, a category that includes items like breakfast cereal, baked goods, pasta and rice.

Categories such as meat and fish, which require close regulatory supervision, are not included. Under the reform, Israel will adopt the EU procedure for food imports, which will open the market to massive imports of food products, expanding the range of products, with the objective of increasing competition and lowering consumer prices.

The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) noted recently that the non-sensitive food covered by the law accounts for about half of Israel’s US$4.5 billion in annual food imports, so that the law could have a major impact on local consumption.

The “cornflakes law” aims to ease the way for more imports by eliminating the regulatory barriers that have blocked them until now. The practice of multinational companies appointing exclusive importers for their products in Israel will be done away with.

Products that meet European Union standards will be given a free regulatory pass from Israel. All the importer needs to do is certify to the Health Ministry that a product meets local standards.

By comparison, today an importer needs to get approval before he can bring in an imported product. Such approval hinges on the foreign manufacturers providing written approvals, a requirement that creates considerable bureaucracy and often serves as a barrier to importing products at all.