Billionaire Rami Levy. Screenshot

Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing, owned by billionaire Rami Levy, is one of Israel's largest discount supermarket chains. Rami Levy operates 52 stores - including three franchises - across the country and operates a 30,000-square-meter logistics center in the city of Modiin. The group employs about 8,000 people and has annual sales of about $1.68 billion. Other competitors have much larger chains, but Rami Levy, 69, has attracted much attention for his rise from a poor boy to a billionaire and for running discount supermarkets for customers. In addition to discounts, Levy's supermarket chain regularly offers special deals for Jewish holidays. Rami Levy grew up in Jerusalem's bustling Nachlaot neighborhood, near the Mahane Yehuda open market. Levy decided to open his first store after witnessing a store owner’s distaste for his grandmother. “I’ll get out of the military and open a store,” Levy thought. Levy’s grandfather owned a small warehouse a block away on Hashikma Street. In 1977, Levy cleaned, painted, and converted the warehouse into a grocery store. Levy attracted customers by selling food at wholesale prices. After three months, Levy connected directly with companies that supplied the wholesalers and began buying directly from them, making a small profit and then expanding his chain. Levy has since founded an insurance company and a mobile phone provider, both of which bear his name. Customers can also dine at Hashikma Pizza or Hashikma Burger below his corporate office. Levy said he would join any industry “where I can do good for my customers, sell at low prices and make sure my customers get good service.” Shopkeepers on Hashikma Street, where Levy started, said he had not changed since the days they knew him as a friendly and generous grocer. “Levy was a good man,” said Aviezer Zaken, who runs a fish and poultry shop. “We didn’t think he would become a billionaire. But he did.” Other shopkeepers said Levy never took a break. “There was no free time. He worked 24 hours a day,” said Yakov Gazit, who used to own a Turkish restaurant on the corner of Hashikma, near Levy’s shop. Still, Gazit remembers one night years ago when he was stranded on the other side of Jerusalem with a flat tire and Levy came to his aid at 3 a.m. “You’re in trouble, so I’m coming to help you,” Gazit recalls Levy saying after he called for help. Rami Levy is ranked 87th on Forbes’ 2022 list of Israel’s 100 richest people, with a net worth of $0.85 billion.

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