Pouch Segment Growing Rapidly in Spots

While not yet widely available, sales of nicotine pouches are developing rapidly in select geographies, according to a blog post by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) of reduced-risk products. The largest markets are currently in high-income and middle-income countries, with Sweden and the United States topping the list, partly as a result of their strong oral tobacco cultures.

Of the 15 companies ranked by the FSFW’s Tobacco Transformation Index, which measures the extent to which nicotine companies are making progress toward reducing the consumption of high-risk products, seven currently offer nicotine pouches. In 2021, nicotine pouches represented 0.3 percent of the world tobacco market in value terms.

Twenty-four of the 36 countries covered by the Tobacco Transformation Index allow nicotine pouches. Of those 24 markets in 2021, the market size exceeded 10 million units in seven: the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Switzerland and Poland.

Legislation differs among the studied geographies, with some countries treating nicotine pouches as consumer products and others viewing them as tobacco products. Germany’s Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety determined that nicotine pouches are a foodstuff containing an unauthorized novel food ingredient—nicotine—and thus illegal for sale.