Cofix

Cofix began as a no-frills takeaway café chain selling coffee, sandwiches, baked goods, fruit, and drinks at a uniform NIS 5 price, without seating or waiters.[2] Its model combined compact stores, high sales volumes, centralized purchasing, and franchising. The company later expanded into neighborhood supermarkets and bars, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2015, and came under Rami Levy's control in 2018.[7][3] By the first half of 2025, supermarkets generated 92% of Cofix's revenue and cafés generated 8%, making grocery retail the main part of the business.[3]

The idea behind Cofix traces to a moment of frustration in 2000, when founder Avi Katz visited a convenience store and paid NIS 18 for hot coffee and NIS 12 for a yeast cake, while a companion bought iced coffee for NIS 22.[4] Katz recalled the experience as formative: "I'll show them; it's impossible that 50 shekels won't be enough for coffee."[4] He subsequently conceived of a "dollar coffee shop" in 2002 but shelved the idea, saying at the time that "the time wasn't ripe."[10]

The concept was revived in the wake of Israel's 2011 cottage-cheese boycott, when public protests over rising grocery and housing costs created a receptive environment for a radically low-price food offer.[10] Katz designed the business around two principles: stripping out overhead costs associated with mall locations, air-conditioning, seating, and conventional café service, and replacing margin per item with high sales volume.[2][4] The name "Cofix" was conceived as an abbreviation of "Coffee fix price," signaling the concept's central promise.[4]

From the outset, the business model required exceptional throughput. An average Cofix store needed to sell approximately 1,500 items per day to generate a profit.[10] To make this viable, Cofix purchased in large quantities, securing lower prices from suppliers and enabling the NIS 5 retail point to remain sustainable.[11] Negotiations with suppliers were sometimes unconventional: when one sandwich supplier said it could not profitably sell a whole sandwich at NIS 5, Katz reportedly opened the sandwich, removed one triangular half, and asked how much the supplier would charge for that portion instead.[10]

Cofix opened its first branch on Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv on September 30, 2013, operating on a takeaway-only basis with no seating or waiters.[2] The initial menu covered coffee, sandwiches, baked goods, fruit, and drinks—every item priced at NIS 5.[2] Katz described the target customer as someone seeking coffee on the way to work rather than a leisure café visit.[2]

The founding plan called for three company-operated pilot branches before expansion through franchises, with an ambition to reach 100 branches within eighteen months and 300 within three years. The three pilot stores were expected to require NIS 5 million in investment.[2][4] The branches were planned as kosher and closed on Saturdays.[2][4] Each outlet was designed to fit into a compact 30–40-square-meter footprint on a busy city-center street, minimizing rent costs while maximizing foot traffic.[12]

Growth was swift. By the end of 2014 the chain had 44 branches, and a further 26 had opened by mid-June 2015, by which time it was targeting 120 branches by year-end.[7] The fixed-price approach quickly made an impression on surrounding businesses: in Petah Tikva, nearby shops and kiosks lowered their own prices in response to Cofix's arrival, while some merchants reported a direct effect on their trade. One kiosk owner said his daily slush sales fell from around 30 cups to two or three after a nearby business began selling iced coffee for NIS 5.[11]

The menu expanded steadily as the chain grew. Early offerings of sandwiches, baked goods, focaccia, juices, desserts, snacks, and coffee were later supplemented by dim sum, pasta dishes, rice dishes, and salads.[10] Cofix Bars, a variant that also sold alcoholic drinks, were incorporated into the network.[5] The fixed-price model allowed customers to mix and match two items for NIS 5, and suppliers were asked to develop smaller packages suited to the price point.[10]

In June 2015, Cofix completed a merger into the publicly traded shell company Agri Invest, becoming the first café chain traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.[7] The listing valued the company at approximately NIS 90–91 million.[5][12] Financial figures provided to valuation consultants showed an average of 1,800 items sold per branch daily, with NIS 51.5 million in revenue and NIS 8.4 million in gross profit for the preceding year.[12]

The company earned revenue not only from retail sales but also from selling branches to franchisees and collecting management, advertising, and merchandise-supply fees from them.[12] This franchise structure remained central to Cofix's operation and later became a source of strain.

Cofix extended its fixed-price philosophy beyond cafés into grocery retail through a sister chain called Super Cofix.[13] The concept applied the same NIS 5 uniform pricing to a selection of leading food and household products, sold through small neighborhood supermarkets of approximately 150–400 square meters. The stores were intended to serve urban customers who needed small quantities of particular items without traveling to a large discount supermarket.[13]

By the time of a 2016 Jerusalem Post feature, Super Cofix had 17 stores and was targeting 40 by year-end.[10] Katz described the intended customers as students, singles, young couples, and senior citizens seeking affordable everyday goods close to home.[10] When Cofix raised its café prices to NIS 6 in February 2017, Super Cofix retained its NIS 5 pricing across approximately 800 product lines.[5]

Cofix's first step outside Israel came in 2016 with the opening of a café at Moscow's Okhotny Ryad shopping center, priced at 50 rubles per item—roughly NIS 3 at the time, reflecting lower general price levels in the Russian market.[8] A separate Ynet report described a three-stage plan for Russia: three company-operated pilot stores, followed by 300 franchised branches in Moscow and 700 more across Russia, with menus adapted to local tastes.[6]

The Times of Israel reported the first international branch as opening near Moscow's Red Square in October 2016 and noted plans for expansion into London, although London was described as a plan rather than a completed opening.[5] By December 2017, Globes reported that the Russian network had 33 branches in Moscow and three in St. Petersburg, showing expansion beyond the pilot stage but remaining far short of the proposed 1,000-branch network.[14]

In February 2017, Cofix announced that its café prices would rise from NIS 5 to NIS 6, citing rising market costs.[5][14] The change applied across all 131 outlets, including the Cofix Bar locations.[5] The company said the increase would allow it to remain financially strong, broaden its product range, and open in roughly 100 additional sites where operating at NIS 5 had not been viable.[5]

The NIS 6 price did not become a permanent arrangement. In December 2017, Cofix announced that coffee and sandwiches would return to NIS 5, while larger portions would be offered at NIS 8.[14] The chain said it was broadening its offer as it tried to address declining profitability; additional products included coffee capsules and jars of instant coffee.[14]

Rami Levy, the Israeli supermarket entrepreneur, acquired control of Cofix in 2018.[3] Katz later said Levy's involvement was intended to lend the company stability and that he and his daughter had reduced their combined ownership from approximately 40% to 20%.[15] Under Levy, the business tilted decisively toward grocery retail: supermarket operations came to represent 92% of revenue, while the café network contributed 8%.[3]

The café side of the business contracted sharply. From a peak of 110 franchised cafés, the network fell to 34 outlets by 2025.[9] Levy indicated that his primary interest lay in developing the urban grocery business and said he would consider selling the café operations to franchisees or an operating partner.[9]

In September 2025, Rami Levy completed the purchase of Cofix's remaining publicly held shares, and Cofix was delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.[9] Ynet reported the transaction value for the public's 24% holding at NIS 44 million, while Globes described the figure as approximately NIS 40 million.[9][3] The company became a subsidiary of Rami Levy Marketing Hashikma, with 27 "Rami Levy in the Neighborhood" stores, some remaining Super Cofix branches earmarked for conversion, and four Little Switzerland mini-markets continuing to operate independently for the time being.[9]

In the first half of 2025, Cofix reported revenue of approximately NIS 135–138 million, with the sources differing slightly on the figure, a 7% year-over-year decline, and a net loss of NIS 5.2 million.[9][3]

In April 2026, a Jerusalem District Court approved the first step in a proposed restructuring of the Cofix group.[16] Cofix Group, by then a subsidiary of Rami Levy, held interests in Urban Cofix and Super Cofix.[16] Under the approved step, Cofix Group was to transfer its 70% holding in Super Cofix to Rami Levy without payment, after which Super Cofix was intended to merge into Rami Levy Marketing Hashikma.[16] The stated aim was to consolidate the grocery operations under a single company. The court's approval required the share transfer to be completed by mid-October 2026; the cited account described the transfer as the first of two steps and did not report completion of the subsequent merger.[16]

Cofix's arrival in 2013 had a measurable effect on Israel's café and food-retail markets. Its NIS 5 pricing prompted similar fixed-price coffee bars to open and pushed established competitors—including large chains charging NIS 18 or more for a latte—to lower their prices.[5] A 2014 Jewish News profile compared Cofix's NIS 5 latte directly with the NIS 18 lattes charged by leading Israeli chains such as Aroma and Arcaffe, illustrating the magnitude of the price gap the chain had exploited.[17]

The chain's growth was also read as a commercial expression of the consumer mood that had produced the 2011 cottage-cheese boycott: a broad Israeli appetite for affordable daily goods without the premium associated with brand-name café culture.[10] Katz framed his ambition simply: "I just want to make people happy."[17] A customer quoted in Jewish News captured the practical appeal: "It's great for people with families who just want somewhere to stop and have a coffee and a soft drink. It's a huge saving."[17]

Cofix's trajectory—from disruptive startup to publicly traded company to a subsidiary absorbed into a conventional supermarket group—reflects both the power and the limits of the fixed-price model. Sustaining NIS 5 pricing through inflation while allowing franchisees to earn a profit ultimately proved unworkable, according to Levy's assessment of the model.[9] By the mid-2020s, Cofix was primarily a grocery operation rather than the café chain that had reshaped Israel's coffee market, with supermarkets accounting for 92% of its revenue.[3]

Cofix's franchise economics drew criticism from some unsuccessful operators. In a 2020 interview, Katz acknowledged that some franchisees had found the model uneconomical.[15] He said Cofix received requests from 6,000 people interested in buying a franchise during its first week and that 20 to 30 families ultimately lost money through unsuccessful franchises.[15] He also said that 80% of Cofix businesses were still operating after seven years, contrasting that with his claim that 80% of new food businesses generally close within three years.[15] These figures were Katz's own statements rather than independently established statistics. In 2025, Levy similarly argued that inflation and the need for franchisees to make a profit meant that an indefinite commitment to the NIS 5 price was not viable.[9]