Strauss replaces ‘Turkish coffee’ branding with patriotic slogans
Company temporarily adds Israeli flag and motivational phrases to flagship label, following public pressure to boycott products tied to Turkey over its support of Hamas
Strauss has announced a new packaging line for one of its most well known products, Elite Turkish coffee, due to public distaste for Turkey amid Istanbul’s support for the Hamas terror group as it fights Israel in Gaza.
The company announced Monday that the new temporary packaging will keep its familiar look, with the addition of an Israeli flag and patriotic slogans such as “The victory generation,” “Stronger together” and “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The People of Israel Live”).
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, there have been public calls to boycott Turkish goods, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a series of scathing broadsides against Israel since Hamas’s atrocities sparked the war. He has expressed called the group “freedom fighters,” referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the butcher of Gaza” and branded Israel a “terror state.”
Strauss’s popular, decades-old “Turkish coffee” brand is intended for making Turkish-style coffee but has no ties to the country beyond that. Still, calls recently grew by consumers for the company to change the branding.
“Demand for coffee has been high since the start of the war,” Ynet news quoted Strauss Israel Coffee CEO Avi Laufer as saying.
“There were posts that asked us to change the name to ‘Israeli coffee’ because of the calls to boycott products from Turkey. We wanted to clarify that there’s no connection between [our] Turkish coffee and Turkey. The coffee beans come from coffee producing nations like Brazil, Vietnam and Ethiopia. There’s no coffee coming from Turkey,” Laufer was quoted as saying. “So why the name? It’s the signature fine grind that’s used in Turkey and Greece.”
Laufer went on to say that as well as assessing marketing considerations, the company wanted to “raise morale” in Israel, especially for soldiers currently operating in Gaza (who often drink Elite Turkish coffee, which is easy to prepare in field conditions), as the IDF wages its campaign to root out the Hamas terror group.
“This coffee is in almost every home [and] with our soldiers in Gaza, who send us photos of them drinking coffee. We said we’ll use phrases to replace the name and show how Israeli the product is,” Laufer was quoted as saying.
The Strauss official added that the line was temporary, though he did not specify a timeframe, and that the original packaging will still be available for those who prefer it.
The marketing move was well received, with social media posts welcoming the new packaging. Some posts also poked fun at the change, suggesting adding slogans to other household products such as toilet paper (“Wipe together”) or new product names like “Strong coffee (against Hamas).”
בשעה טובה
בעקבות הלחץ: שם המותג "קפה טורקי" הפך ל"עם ישראל חי" ו"חזקים ביחד" pic.twitter.com/FHBCEcMKba— יניב זלצברג (@YanivZaltzberg) December 25, 2023
This wasn’t the first time Israelis raged against Elite coffee’s branding. Like Americans post-9/11, who changed French fries to Freedom fries to express their dissatisfaction with France’s position on the Iraq invasion, Israelis wanted to rename “Turkish coffee” to “Israeli coffee” when Turkey sided with Hamas during its 2014 war with Israel, according to a Haaretz newspaper report at the time.
Turkey’s Erdogan had been in the midst of an effort to warm ties with Israel in the months before October 7, but has since sharply backtracked and returned to the vitriolic attacks that characterized many of the Islamist leader’s previous years in power.
He has also been in close contact with the Hamas leadership since the start of the war, and Turkey has maintained deep ties with the terror group over the years, allowing it to operate from an office in Istanbul for over a decade.
