Flue-cured tobacco deliveries in Zimbabwe are expected to have passed the 200 million kg mark by the time the 2014 sales season ends, according to a story in the Herald quoting the Marketing Board’s CEO, Andrew Matibiri.
The country’s auction floors are due to close on June 27, earlier than usual despite the big crop, though a clean-up sale will be held on July 15.
The early closure of the auctions is down to the high level of deliveries being received at contract floors, where, according to a report earlier this year, prices have been better than those on offer at auction and where some growers not under contract have been selling their tobacco.
Contract sales will continue until further notice.
The latest marketing board figures show that 194 million kg of flue cured had been sold for $619 million since the opening of the selling season in February.
At the same stage of last year’s selling season, 147 million kg of tobacco had been sold for $543 million.
The average price this year, at US$3.19 per kg, is down by more than 13 percent on that of the previous year, US$3.69.
By the end of the 2013 season, 166 million kg of tobacco had been sold.
Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday warned the public against using e-cigarettes, which are prohibited in the country, according to a story in the Taipei Times.
The import or manufacture of these products constitutes a violation of pharmaceutical regulations and is punishable by a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
All of the e-cigarettes on the market were illicit because no permits allowing the manufacture or import of such products had been issued, said the FDA’s Northern Center section head, Wu Ming-mei, at a press conference in Taipei yesterday.
Wu said 525 agency people had inspected online stores, night markets and drug stores nationwide between March and last month in an effort to crack down on sales of e-cigarettes.
The agency had discovered 43 e-cigarettes, 28 of which had contained nicotine, seven of which did not contain nicotine and did not claim any therapeutic effects, four of which were being examined by local health departments and four of which had been referred to prosecutors for investigation, Wu said.
Thirty-seven of the 43 prohibited products were sold online, Wu added.
Philip Morris International is due to host a live audio webcast at www.pmi.com/2014InvestorDay of senior management presentations and Q&A sessions at its 2014 Investor Day, which will be held at its OperationsCenter in Lausanne, Switzerland, on June 26–27.
The presentations and Q&A sessions will be webcast live on both days in listen-only mode beginning about 9 a.m. Swiss time and ending about 5:45 p.m. on June 26; and beginning about 10 a.m. and ending about 12:45 p.m. on June 27.
A copy of the remarks and slides will be made available at the start of each presentation at www.pmi.com/2014InvestorDay.
An archive of the webcast will be available until July 25.
The Innovia Group’s management was named the National Large Buyout Private Equity Backed Management Team of the Year at the British Private Equity Venture Capital Association’s (BVCA) ceremony dinner held in London on Thursday.
The team had been automatically entered into the national awards after winning the Large Buyout Private Equity backed Management Team of the Year and International Impact Management Team of the Year in the North West Region earlier this year.
“The BVCA Management Team Awards are designed to celebrate managerial excellence, and underline what an important role private equity and venture capital plays in the national economy,” said a press note issued by Innovia. “They are the only awards … dedicated to the management teams of U.K. businesses backed by private equity and venture capital.”
CEO David Beeby was said to have recognized teamwork, one of the group’s core values, when he made his acceptance speech. “I have the privilege and honor to head up a team of 1,600 people,” he said. “Any success we have is as a result of the combined effort of the whole team.”
Beeby, left, with Andy Crossley, head of corporate sales and syndication, Peel Hunt, center; and David Tilston, CFO, Innovia Group
Vrijdag Premium Printing has invested in a new Bobst machine for applying high-quality foil to labels and packaging, allowing the company to respond with even greater speed and flexibility to market demands. The machine has been operational since June 1.
“Customer demand for shorter processing times for high-quality foil printing was the main reason for this investment,” says Henk Nota, managing director of Vrijdag Premium Printing.
“This replacement investment means that we now have access to a faster machine that is completely up to date technically,” he adds. “As a result we can react more flexibly to market demand and offer our national and international customers the optimum processing reliability that they expect of us.”
Based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, Vrijdag Premium Printing supplies promotional labels and packages for a variety of products. Its offerings to the tobacco industry include cigar rings, folding board and shoulder boxes.
Gamucci Corporation has set up a new scientific products division and appointed Adrian Marshall (pictured) as divisional CEO.
In a press note, the company said it had established the new division with the aim of setting the benchmark for innovation and quality in the e-cigarette industry, and ensuring Gamucci products met future regulatory requirements.
Marshall is said to have a strong background and reputation in the tobacco and nicotine product sectors. He has previously held a number of senior roles with British American Tobacco, including director of BAT’s Global Harm Reduction Programme; managing director of its nicotine products business, Nicoventures; group head of regulation and corporate and social responsibility; and vice president sales and marketing in Japan.
“Gamucci is committed to developing e-cigarettes that receive marketing authorization from the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the U.K. and other regulatory authorities in the EU and elsewhere,” Gamucci said in a press note.
“As an expert in the field, Adrian will lead a team of specialists and expert advisors to develop new Gamucci products that will meet future regulatory requirements and provide smokers with the highest-quality alternatives to tobacco cigarettes.”
“This new division will set the benchmark for quality and innovation,” said Tony Scanlan, CEO of Gamucci. “The rest of the sector will be challenged to meet our developments, which will continue to demonstrate that Gamucci is a technology leader. The division will enable our products to meet and exceed the demands of regulatory agencies and assure our customers that Gamucci products are of the highest quality. As head of this exciting new division, Adrian will bring a wealth of knowledge to Gamucci and will add tremendous value as a member of the board and management team.”
Marshall was quoted as saying that he had been impressed with Gamucci’s leadership in product design and its commitment, through its wholly owned factory, to developing and manufacturing the highest-quality e-cigarettes on the market today. “I am delighted to be joining this ambitious and innovative business and look forward to working with the board in capitalizing on the many opportunities ahead,” he added.
Meanwhile, Taz Sheikh, director and co-founder of Gamucci, said his company had raised the bar a number of times since its entry into the industry in 2007. “Gamucci was responsible for developing the world’s first disposable cigarette in 2008, and we have proprietary core cartomizer technology, which is now widely copied and for which we have secured a U.K. patent,” he said. “Adrian’s team will help to ensure that Gamucci continues to lead the industry through innovation and quality.”
Plans by the government of Bangladesh to raise the prices of bidis in the next fiscal year would send the industry to the verge of collapse, according to a story in the Daily Star, quoting researchers.
A price hike would take a heavy toll on the businesses operating within the bidi sector, which were already struggling with spiralling costs of production, said professor Mesbah Kamal, chairperson of the Research and Development Collective.
Kamal spoke at a seminar on the national budget and bidi workers, organized by the research firm at The Daily Star Centre in Dhaka.
Under provisions of the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the price of a 25-stick pack of nonfilter bidis would increase from BDT5.35 to BDT6.14. And the price of a 20-stick pack of filter bidis would increase to BDT6.94 from BDT6.05.
About 2.5 million people are now engaged in 90 bidi factories throughout Bangladesh, down from 218 factories in 2001.
“Any type of tobacco is injurious to health,” said Monirul I. Khan, chairman of the sociology department at Dhaka University. “If the government wants to ban tobacco, it can do that. But the government must protect the bidi workers until alternative employments are created.”
The U.K. smokers’ group Forest has announced that Brendan O’Neill, editor of the online magazine Spiked, is to speak at Forest’s Freedom Dinner on July 15.
A blogger for the Telegraph and a columnist for The Big Issue and The Australian, O’Neill has also written also for The Spectator, City AM, Reason and the Daily Beast.
Described by The Guardian as a “Marxist proletarian firebrand,” he is a fierce opponent of “bossy, intolerant and censorious government.”
O’Neill has described standardized packaging as an “infringement of free speech” and proposals to ban smoking in cars as an exposure of “the new authoritarians’ casual disregard for the notion of privacy, so that even our privately owned vehicles come to be seen as fair game for petty laws to curb and control what was once perfectly legal behaviour.”
Also speaking at next month’s event is Alex Deane, head of public affairs at Weber Shandwick. An elected common councilman in the City of London, Deane was the founding director of Big Brother Watch and David Cameron’s first chief of staff.
Author of Big Brother Watch: The State of Civil Liberties in Modern Britain, Deane currently advises some of the biggest companies in the U.K.
This year’s Freedom Dinner is hosted by Forest and supported by the Institute of Economic Affairs, The Free Society and Liberty League.
Indonesia’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (FDMA) has told tobacco companies to comply with a government regulation requiring pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs by June 24, reports The Jakarta Post.
Indonesian tobacco companies produced 3,392 cigarette brands as of April, according to Indonesia’s taxation directorate general. Of those companies, only Bentoel, Sampoerna, Djarum and Gudang Garam had registered their cigarette packaging designs with pictorial health warnings, said Sri Utami Ekaningtyas, the FDMA’s addictive substances monitoring director.
“They have sent their pictorial health warnings and shown a commitment to launch these cigarette packs on 24 June. We are optimistic that other companies will follow,” Sri added.
According to the government regulation, tobacco companies should print five pictorial health warnings on their cigarette packs, covering at least 40 percent of a pack’s overall size.
These warnings show scary images of tobacco-related diseases such as mouth cancer, throat cancer and lung cancer.
R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. will expand distribution of its Vuse digital vapor cigarette nationally in the United States beginning June 23. Selected retail outlets across the country will be carrying Vuse as of that date, and additional stores will be added to the distribution throughout the rest of the year.
“We are proud to expand our distribution of Vuse and offer adult smokers across the nation the most technologically advanced and best-performing digital vapor cigarette on the market,” said Stephanie Cordisco, president of RJR Vapor Co. “Vuse is a game-changer in the e-cigarette category, providing an innovative product that meets the expectations of adult tobacco consumers.”
Designed and assembled in the United States using high-speed automated equipment, Vuse provides a consistent smoking experience, according to RJR Vapor Co. A digital microprocessor works in conjunction with a memory chip to control major aspects of product performance from vapor delivery to battery management.
Since expanding with full marketing support to Colorado in July 2013, and earlier this year to Utah, Vuse quickly became the best-selling vapor product in both states, with high levels of repeat purchase, according to RJR Vapor Co.
The Vuse Solo includes a flavor cartridge in original or menthol, a rechargeable Vuse power unit and a USB charger. Replacement cartridges are sold in packs of two—each Vuse cartridge lasts about the equivalent of one pack of traditional cigarettes. Depleted cartridges and power units can be returned to RJR Vapor Co. through a prepaid mailer available at www.vusevapor.com (access restricted to those age 21 and over) and are recycled free of charge.
