Sami Burekas develops, manufactures and distributes frozen baked food products to the food retail market and to the food service industry in Israel. The company has been widely recognized as an industry leader for over 30 years and as an experienced veteran, and is distributed and sold in the most respected supermarkets in the food industry.

 

Sami Burekas was established by Shmuel Alkolombre, a Bulgarian immigrant who brought with him a tradition of Sephardic bakery cuisine going back 100 years. In the 1950s, he opened his first coffee shop in Jaffa City, Israel that offered for the first time a “new cake” that “didn’t taste sweet” and was served with coffee…. the burekas, a puff pastry filled with various flavors. In less than 15 years, Sami expanded, and in the 1980s, Sami had the first and the biggest bakery franchise in Israel, with over 86 stores. The business expanded further once Alkolombre’s son, Isaac Alkolombre, brought from the United States a new idea: instead of going to a bake shop in a traditional way, he proposed that supermarkets open little bake shop boutiques and combine supermarket products with baked goods. In less than 3 years, Sami Burekas became the most popular fresh bakery manufacturer in the entire country, with over 400 boutique locations inside the major supermarkets and private stores. The formula was simple. Sami supplies the equipment, the fixtures, the training, and the merchandise. The supermarkets provide the workers.

 

In the early 2000s, Sami developed another new idea, offering to supply the Ministry of Defense (משרד הבטחון) with the Shekem (שקם), a network of hundreds of cantines, kiosks, and superettes spread all around the country, mainly in the military population. Instead of having thousands of soldiers eating preservatives in old cakes, Sami offered to open many bake shops in the military bases that would be operated by the soldiers, who would learn from Sami Burekas how to use them. Sami supplied the merchandise, equipment, and baked goods. The project turned out to be a tremendous success.

 

Sami opened in hundreds of locations across the country and became highly successful. In the early 2000s, Sami's gross sales exceeeded millions of shekels in baked goods to the Israeli market alone, with close to 600 locations including bake shops, supermarkets, coffee shops, and military bases. The goods included fresh shelf products as well as frozen packages. The company was sold to an investment group in the early 2000s, and in 2013 the company was bought back by the founder's grandson, Shmuel Alkolombre, bringing back old recipes and experience in Sephardic cuisine, with an authentic variety of cooked food, ready-made food, and baked goods such as Yemenite Malawach, Moroccan cigars, Iraqi kibbeh, Bulgarian burekas, Italian pizzas, frozen dough, and French pastries.