One of the strictest dairy regulatory environments in the region. The Israel Dairy Board explicitly states that milk may only be sold to licensed dairies and farmers may not sell directly to consumers. In practice, raw goat and sheep milk circulates informally in Bedouin and Arab communities in the Negev and northern villages, where door-to-door trade is a culturally embedded norm. Enforcement is essentially absent in these rural areas.
Israel's dairy sector operates under the Control on Commodities and Services Law (1957) and the Planning of the Dairy Market Law (1992), administered by the Israel Dairy Board under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Food Control Service under the Ministry of Health. The Israel Dairy Board's policy explicitly states: "Milk can be sold only to the dairies and farmers are not to allow selling their milk directly to any consumer." This is one of the most restrictive formal dairy frameworks in the Middle East.
In practice, raw milk is accessible in several informal channels. Bedouin and Arab communities in the Negev (Naqab) and northern Israel maintain traditional family herds of sheep and goats, with raw milk, labneh, and fresh soft cheese traded informally door-to-door within and between communities. National brucellosis surveillance data (2004-2022, Cambridge University Press) documents that 84.9% of culture-confirmed brucellosis cases in Israel occur in the Arab sector, predominantly among Bedouin, with informal raw dairy trade identified as the primary transmission route. The same study describes "deep-rooted trade connections between Bedouin communities in southern Israel and other regions such as East Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority." Enforcement of dairy law in these rural communities has been largely absent. A small grey-market supply also serves health-conscious consumers through unnamed farms, and a reportedly growing informal market exists in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox communities. A 2016 brucellosis outbreak involving 19 cases was traced to unauthorized raw camel milk sold online by an unlicensed vendor sourcing from a Bedouin farm in southern Israel (CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 27, June 2021). Israel is undertaking significant dairy sector reform (2026) focused on quotas and pricing; raw milk legalization is not part of the reform agenda.
Official government documents and legal resources for Israel
Israeli legislation governing the structure and marketing of the dairy sector, under which all milk sales must pass through licensed dairies and direct farmer-to-consumer sales are prohibited.
View Official Resource →Israeli food safety authority responsible for oversight of dairy products sold to consumers, including standards for processed milk and enforcement of food safety regulations.
View Official Resource →Search for raw milk sources near popular locations in Israel
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