Strauss Group focuses on dairy products, coffee, water, snacks, salads, and dips.

In 1918, Eliyahu Fromenchenko (also spelled Fromchenko), a Russian Jew, launched a candy business after preparing confections in his home kitchen.

Richard and Hilde Strauss, German Jews from Nieder-Olm, immigrated in 1936 to Nahariya in the British Mandate of Palestine and started a dairy farm initially with two cows.

In 1969, after Groupe Danone purchased a part of the company's ownership, Strauss expanded from ice-cream manufacture and to puddings and other individual packaged dairy desserts, most popular of which was "Dani" and, about 15 years later, "Milky".

In the same year, Strauss purchased Elite and grew to over 7,000 employees and a US$1 billion/year turnover, although the formal merger between the companies did not occur until 2004.

In the same year, it acquired the Max Brenner chain of chocolate cafés with locations across Asia, Australia and the United States.

[12] Strauss was cited by the Israel Antitrust Authority as a monopoly in 2004,[13] a status that essentially places the company under government regulation limiting the way it can change the price of its products to protect the consumer and smaller competitors.

Strauss and Elite merged in 2004[14] to become Strauss–Elite, which, in 2005, acquired control of New York-based Sabra food producing company, to operate as a joint-venture with Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo.

In December 2005, Strauss–Elite merged its coffee activity with Santa Clara Indústria e Comércio de Alimentos Ltda in Brazil.