TopGum Industries, the Sderot-based company built out of that pivot, is now posting record results and closing a long-term partnership that places its products deeper into the North American market.
By Shula Rosen
A decade ago, gummy candy was just a small item on the shelf of a neighborhood minimarket.
Today, it is the foundation of one of Israel’s fastest-growing exports in the nutritional supplements industry.
TopGum Industries, the Sderot-based company built out of that pivot, is now posting record results and closing a long-term partnership that places its products deeper into the North American market.
Investors responded sharply this week as trading opened in Tel Aviv. The company’s share price jumped roughly 15 percent on Tuesday and is up about 31 percent since Sunday, a surge fueled by news of a supply agreement with a major U.S. supplement brand.
The arrangement guarantees TopGum at least $25 million in orders through the end of 2026, with an automatic one-year renewal option. That same client has already purchased about $16 million in product before this new commitment.
The momentum follows a third-quarter earnings release showing the company’s strongest results to date.
TopGum reported $29.5 million in quarterly revenue, nearly double last year’s figure. Sales from supplements alone climbed 163 percent year over year. Net profit reached $2 million—four times what the company posted in the same period last year. Its order backlog now totals $46 million, up from $18 million a year earlier.
Chief Executive Eyal Shohat told Ynet the latest agreement is “another milestone in our accelerated growth trajectory and reinforces our standing as a preferred partner for leading North American customers.”
The company’s trajectory is rooted in a moment of improvisation by founder Hai Hayoun, whose search for kosher-certified gummies at his Ashdod minimarket led him to reconsider what he was selling and why.
His childhood in Dimona, early years helping support his family, and the financial struggles that followed eventually brought him to the conclusion that if he couldn’t buy a kosher gummy, he should figure out how to make one.
As he later put it, “I asked wholesalers to supply gummy candy, but they told me it wasn’t kosher because the gelatin came from pigs.”
One manufacturer offered an alternative source, he recalled, but the raw material “made the price of the candy four times higher than regular gelatin-based gummies.” That gap in the market convinced him that “if there are no kosher gummy candies, we’re essentially excluding most of the country.”
From that insight grew a business now valued at more than 1.5 billion shekels, backed by large investment funds and anchored by a new factory in Sderot. The company says additional supply deals with international partners are already in advanced stages.
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