A fire that swept through the Israel Matza factory in Petach Tikva Monday night — the third blaze in a matza factory in recent weeks — destroyed more than 200,000 packages of matza and may result in a shortage of matzot for Passover, which begins late next month.
The fire was the second at the Petach Tikva plant in six weeks. It followed by less than a week a fire that gutted the Aviv matza bakery in Bnei Brak where 100,000 packages for export were destroyed. Fire marshals said the three conflagrations in bakeries all owned by the same family could not be coincidental. Experts are investigating the possibility of arson.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said there may not be a shortage because the output from the affected plants has declined in recent years. Whereas once they supplied 60 percent of the local market, their share has dropped to 40 percent.
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