It was for its first seventy years an Israeli food processing cooperative (co-op) owned by the kibbutzim (collective farms) and moshavim (agricultural communities), and historically specializing in milk and dairy products; it was subsequently sold by its members as a limited company and, since 2014, has been controlled by a Chinese state company, Bright Food.

Tnuva was labelled by the Israel Antitrust Authority as a monopoly,[2] a status that essentially places the company under government regulation, limiting the way it can change the price of its products in order to protect the consumer and smaller competitors.

In June 2011, Israeli consumer action groups called for a customer ban on Tnuva products, due to them using their monopoly on the market to raise prices.

[6] In August 2017, it has been reported that the kibbutzim buyers organizations have begun to consider selling their 26% stake in Tnuva Food Industries Ltd.[7] In June 2021, a bribery case was published, in which Tnuva received facilitation from labeling its products as part of the Ministry of Health's reform, in exchange for a donation to associations close to Moti Babchik, the personal assistant of then-Health Minister Yaakov Litzman.

[8] In September 2011, a class action was started alleging that "Tnuva abused its position to raise cottage cheese prices by more than 40% between 2006 and 2011.