Expanding applications

Originally developed as a tool to reduce waste, reconstituted tobacco is used for an ever-greater variety of tobacco products, including those within the rapidly growing heat-not-burn segment.
By George Gay
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seems to be moving inexorably toward requiring that all cigarettes sold in the U.S. deliver what is being described as minimally addictive levels of nicotine. However, it is not clear whether the FDA is likely to require that nicotine levels are reduced gradually to minimally addictive levels or in what would surely be a wildly uncharacteristic one-throw-of-the-dice dislocation of the status quo.
In any case, there are several ways in which nicotine levels can be reduced, including through the use of reconstituted tobacco (RT) in cigarettes. So the question arises as to whether this material is a contender in the quest to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes while maintaining a taste that would be acceptable to smokers.
Iqbal Lambat, president and CEO of Star Agritech International, has no doubt that RT can play a significant role in reducing nicotine. RT is by its nature lower in nicotine than leaf tobacco because of the impact of water dilution during production, which means it provides the ideal ingredient for low-nicotine—and low-tar—cigarettes, he says. However, he added, not all RT would be as effective as nanofiber RT is in this role because not all RT could be used at the higher substitution levels at which nanofiber could be used. This is because nanofiber, which he describes as being the gold standard of RT in terms of its price/quality ratio, has a higher aromatic tobacco flavor and aroma provided by the higher level of tobacco fines in its blend, which amounted to about 70 percent. On top of this, the taste of RT can be modified either by blending the ratio of flue-cured Virginia and burley fines to achieve an American blend profile or by adding oriental fines to achieve a more aromatic result. Casing can also be added to the blend before it was turned into sheet.
Meanwhile, Alex Boone, senior director of engineered papers business development at SWM, says his company has developed various technologies to selectively reduce the nicotine level from tobacco material while keeping the original tobacco taste. “Compared to leaf and other reconstitution processes, our two-step papermaking technology offers unique capabilities to adjust the tobacco chemical profile, including nicotine level,” he says. “We believe this will be a very helpful tool for cigarette manufacturers. In addition, SWM has also initiated the development of other reconstituted botanical (nontobacco) materials for cigarette applications. While this new product has no nicotine, it shows a positive impact on taste. So, by adding this material to a tobacco blend, cigarette manufacturers can adjust nicotine deliveries.”
The way in which RT can assist manufacturers to meet lowered nicotine requirements implies that it has wider applications in respect to meeting regulatory demands. Asked if there were any national or regional regulations affecting demand for reconstituted tobacco, volume-wise or in respect of the product characteristics being sought by tobacco manufacturers, Boone said: “Paper RT is an industrial product whose physical and chemical properties can be adjusted and controlled. This flexibility makes paper RT valuable for tobacco product manufacturers because they can partner with SWM and specify properties that will comply with the regulations that apply to them. For SWM, product regulations provide an opportunity to innovate and deliver the end product that customers need to succeed.”
Noncombustibles
Commercial sales of cigarettes with minimally addictive levels of nicotine are still in the future of course, while right now one of the most exciting opportunities for RT is being presented by those devices variously known as heat-not-burn or tobacco-heating products but which will be referred to here by the term used by the FDA, noncombusted cigarettes. Sales of these products have been plateauing in some markets, but their potential seems to be largely undiminished.
Certainly, that seems to be the view of Bruno de Veyrac, the next-generation products director at SWM. He said that noncombusted cigarettes have been a fast-growing product in some countries, such as Japan, and have shown significant potential in other countries and regions. “Although there have been ‘plateauing trends’ in some regions, SWM believes that the demand for noncombusted cigarettes will continue to grow, partly because, over time, noncombusted offerings in different regions will be adjusted to local preferences and demands,” he said.
In fact, de Veyrac was so confident that he said he believed the industry was just starting to explore RT applications for noncombusted cigarettes. “In the future,” he added, “the flexibility of the two-step papermaking process will allow many specific blends to match manufacturers’ own product developments and unique expectations. SWM has set new manufacturing standards for selection and control of tobacco feedstock, process specification settings and monitoring, traceability, hygiene and other product specifications. This means, in part, that it has the capability to produce strips and bobbin forms for any kind of existing noncombusted cigarette design.”
So far, de Veyrac said, the impact of non-combusted cigarettes on RT demand had been very significant, because almost all these products used 100 percent RT. “SWM’s papermaking technology,” he added, “is a key component in achieving the vital aerosol formation and generating the taste the consumer expects. With SWM’s technology and capabilities, the nicotine delivery and other key components can be adjusted to the required level and within tight tolerances, while providing the right tobacco taste in the aerosol.”
Lambat also said that RT was the product best-suited for noncombusted cigarettes. RT provided the best smoke experience because, at the operating temperature used, RT delivered “smoke” that normal tobacco could not provide at such temperatures.
It was early days in this emerging sector, Lambat said, and currently production methods were driving usage. For instance, Philip Morris International’s Heets used a patented crimping technology, and this meant that other manufacturers had had to find, or would-be manufacturers needed to find, an alternative method of using RT in their sticks. One such product comprised a cut form of RT that could alter the flash point at which the RT generated the required “smoke.” The main types of RT that were suitable for this application were the cast-band and nanofiber RTs.
Versatile tool
We tend to hear much about the demand and opportunities that noncombusted cigarettes present for RT, but what was once a poor-man’s tobacco is, in its many developed guises, now sought after for many applications. RT had been developed in the 1970s to use tobacco dust and waste generated during the primary and secondary processes, said Lambat. Before then, this waste would have been discarded or used as fertilizer, so converting it to RT became a cost-saving operation. All multinational and Chinese manufacturers now had their own RT factories but did not provide contract manufacturing services, so most smaller manufacturers purchased RT and still discarded their dust.
RT, said Lambat, was attractive for combusted cigarettes because it could be used at up to 20 percent of a blend, at a cost lower than that of cheap tobacco filler. Other considerations were that it provided the ideal ingredient for low-delivery cigarettes and, because of its relatively neutral impact, a good tool for the tobacco blender. However, there was a growing demand for flavored types of RT, such as Virginia type, burley type, oriental type, and blended type, etc.
Indeed, RT seems to be taking on an ever-increasing number of roles. Boone said that the use of reconstituted tobacco helped SWM’s customers improve cigarette blend consistencies and physical attributes such as filling power, pressure drop and smoking deliveries. “At the same time, SWM has applications for roll-your-own and make-your-own blends it is looking at a sustainable market for cigar and cigarillo wrappers and binders and has recently developed RT specifically for shisha/molasses blends and smokeless tobacco,” he said. “SWM offers a full range of tastes, from flue-cured Virginia to oriental, dark air-cured, fire-cured or blended, with or without casings/flavoring.
“And in line with this innovative approach, SWM is introducing Nexfill, a natural tobacco filler substitute. Using a very specific and select tobacco feedstock and design, it is available in a variety of grades with consistent quality and performance that mix perfectly within existing blends while delivering a neutral taste profile. And it can help our customers more effectively manage their overall supply chain costs.”
But it is not only in the spheres of blend-modification, delivery controls and cost-savings that RT comes into its own. Tobacco manufacturers are seeking to reduce their environmental impact by reducing waste and what better way can they do that than by recycling tobacco stems and other byproducts from the tobacco supply chain in an operation that also reduces costs?
“Otherwise,” Boone said, “RT offers high manufacturing yields in cigarette factories because it has no objectionable stems and generates little loss in primaries and secondaries. And this high productivity is present too during noncombusted cigarette manufacture because RT can be used in the primary process with no need for special equipment.
“In addition, RT offers consistency because, compared to leaf, it is a uniform material, something that is important both in respect of combusted and noncombusted cigarettes.” In the case of the latter, de Veyrac said, a consistent RT “is key in respect of producing a consistent aerosol.” And in the case of the former, Boone said, “SWM pays a lot of attention to raw material blending and processing to ensure very limited product-characteristic fluctuations over the years, so RT is usually considered by blenders to be a major element of the ‘foundation blend’.”
Drivers of demand
Given the wide range of applications that RT now has it is surprising perhaps that demand is not higher than it is. Demand for paper RT had been lower globally for the past decade, said de Veyrac, in line with the cigarette market attrition that had occurred outside China. “In China, SWM has seen demand switch from slurry/cast leaf RT to paper RT as factories in that country seek to reduce tar in conventional cigarettes,” he said. “But our company expects to see demand for paper RT increase with the growth of new-generation products because the usage of RT in non-combusted sticks is eight to 12 times higher than it is in conventional cigarettes.”
Since growth is expected to come from increased sales of non-combusted cigarettes, the rise in demand is expected to follow the geographical expansion of these products. “For the time being,” de Veyrac said, “Japan and Korea seem to be very dynamic markets for noncombusted products, but SWM expects to see significant demand occurring also in the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] and Europe. The U.S. market is predicted to become a big player in the field of noncombusted cigarettes, though the timing will be dependent on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval processes, while in China any market development will depend on when the State Tobacco Monopoly Association authorizes the sale of noncombusted products.”
SWM is probably not too concerned about where growth occurs first because, it says, it has strong manufacturing footprints in the EU, the U.S. and China. The company estimates that the worldwide operational capacity for paper RT is about 335,000 tons, with SWM and its joint venture in China accounting for about one-third of that capacity. Outside China, the capacity is estimated at about 185,000 tons, with SWM, the largest independent paper RT manufacturer, accounting for about 45 percent of that capacity. Additionally, it says, most, if not all, of the non-SWM capacity is accounted for by cigarette manufacturers and is not available on the market.
What seems to be clear is that no new paper RT capacity will be needed for some considerable time, if ever, because SWM estimates that only 50 percent of global capacity is used today. This means, the company says, that there is a great opportunity for this type of RT to support the expansion of noncombusted cigarette demand.
Lambat estimates that, for combustible cigarettes only, the maximum demand worldwide, excluding China, is about 315,000 tons. This was calculated, he said, on the basis of 3 trillion sticks at a usage rate of 15 percent. However, Lambat clearly believes that there is still potential for further demand. A fair percentage of small and medium-sized companies do not yet use RT, and, for instance, there are no known users in sub-Saharan Africa. The Algerian Monopoly does not yet use RT, and it alone could lift demand by 1,800 ton to 2,000 tons per year.