ICL CEO: 400 million people owe their food to our products

Two weeks after the Ministry of Finance’s announcement of the change in ICL’s Dead Sea franchise, the company’s president and CEO Elad Aharonson sought to present another side of the group to the 32nd “Globes” Israel business conference earlier this week, that of an Israeli minerals company that helps to solve one of humankind’s most critical challenges.

“Eight billion people live on planet Earth, double the number of fifty years ago, but the area of agricultural land has not increased,” Aharonson said. “Therefore, the question is how do we feed twice the number of people, as the population continues to grow, with the same agricultural production line?”

The answer, according to Aharonson, lies in advanced fertilizers, particularly those produced by ICL Group. “Bill Gates is very active in agriculture and nutrition security. He says that between 40% and 50% of the people on Earth owe their ability to live to the increasing use of fertilizers,” he said.

Aharonson presented numbers on the company’s impact in this area. “ICL products provide calories at a level equivalent to 420 billion meals a year,” he said. “400 million people receive their daily food, 5% of the world’s population, thanks to the things we do at ICL.”

Aharonson cited two main growth engines. “The first is smarter and more efficient fertilizers, and the second is functional food ingredients such as preservatives and substances that control the level of acidity in food. The special fertilizers market, which was valued last year at $32 billion, is expected to reach more than $45 billion in 2030. And in that market, ICL is the number one player in the world,” he stressed.

One of the advanced products developed by the company is controlled release technology for fertilizers. “One of the problems with fertilizers is that when they are spread in an orchard, only 50% to 70% of the nutrients are absorbed by the plant and contribute to its growth; the rest is absorbed in the ground or evaporates in the air,” Aharonson explained. The solution developed by ICL is a special coating that wraps the fertilizer ingredients and releases them in accordance with the plant’s needs throughout its growing period.

A hundred years of activity

Besides talking about advanced technology, Aharonson sought to emphasize the company’s values. “I want to say a word that isn’t said these days and is very important as far as we are concerned – Zionism,” he said. “We are an Israeli company that operates in places where not many operate, in the south, the Negev, along a 65 kilometer border with Jordan, on the Rotem Plain. We employ thirty something thousand people, almost twenty thousand in the south.”

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ICL was founded a hundred years ago by businessman and mining engineer Moshe Novomeysky under the name Palestine Potash Company. It became a global company traded on the Tel Aviv and New York stock exchanges. The company has annual sales of $7 billion, and has distributed $3.4 billion in dividends in the past decade. It is 75-80% owned by the public, directly or through financial institutions.

The Dead Sea concession, awarded to the company (then a state-owned company known as the Dead Sea Works) in 1961 and extended to 2030 when the company was privatized in the 1990s, generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. The extraction of minerals from the Dead Sea – bromine, potash and magnesium – is one of the cheapest and most efficient operations of its kind in the world. About a quarter of ICL’s activity derives from the Dead Sea.

Full disclosure: The Israel Business Conference is being held in cooperation with Bank Hapoalim and Phoenix Group and sponsored by Bezeq, El Al, Tnuva, Electra, Armis, Haifa Group, Hamilton Lane Israel, Doral, Shikun & Binui, BlackRock, Bazan, Pagaya, KPMG, Nespresso, Egged, Zeekr, ICL, and the Israel Medical Association, and with the participation of Israel Ports. Co., Mekorot, Ashdod Port, and the Israel Innovation Authority.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 27, 2025.

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