Lorillard’s chairman, president and CEO, Murray S. Kessler, and its CFO, David H. Taylor, are due to participate in the Barclays Back-to-School Consumer Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:10 p.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 3.
A live webcast of the presentation will be available through the Investor Relations section of Lorillard’s website at www.lorillard.com.
The presentation will be available in an archived format for 30 days following the event.
Quote of the day, week … year: “Yep, it’s gonna kill him one of these days.”
This was a comment apparently made by Bill McClain about his father, Levie Russell McClain, of Madison County, Georgia, USA, who started smoking cigarettes when he was 16 and went to work in a cotton mill, and who is still smoking them at age 102.
The full story, in The Madison County Journal Today, is at http://www.madisonjournaltoday.com/archives/6365-102-yrs.-old-and-still-smoking-Madison-Co.-resident-reflects-on-old-days-as-birthday-nears.html.
Forest has launched a campaign to promote its No Thank EU initiative, with full-page notices being placed in this week’s issues of the New Statesman (circulation 25,000), The Spectator (63,000) and The Week (194,000).
The group, which is supported by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Ltd. and Gallaher Ltd. (a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies), is fighting proposed revisions to the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive.
Under the headline, “Hey EU! Stop Intruding,” the notice reads: “Under a new Tobacco Products Directive, the European Union could ban menthol and ‘slim’ cigarettes, outlaw 10-packs, prohibit small pouches of roll-your-own tobacco, and severely restrict the shape and size of cigarette packets.”
And the notice gives five reasons for saying no to the proposals:
1. Have we learned nothing from history? Prohibition doesn’t work.
2. Excessive regulation will deny consumers choice and drive them to the black market.
3. Criminal gangs will make a fortune manufacturing and selling prohibited products.
4. Don’t let the EU impose an extreme regulatory agenda on U.K. consumers.
5. What will they prohibit or over-regulate next? Alcohol, fizzy drinks, convenience food? Enough is enough.
The notice asks those who support “choice, not control” to make their voices heard, in part by visiting NoThank.EU.com.
Molins’ Tobacco Machinery division sales during the six months to the end of June, at £18.0 million, were increased by 22 percent on those of the six months to the end of June 2012. At the same time, the division’s operating profit increased from £0.8 million to £1.3 million.
In reporting its first-half results, Molins said that sales of new and rebuilt tobacco machines were supported by a strong opening order book, and that while order intake overall was slightly weaker than in the same period last year, current order prospects were relatively strong.
The division is continuing to focus on new product development and improvements in service performance.
Meanwhile, sales by the company’s Scientific Services division, at £11.4 million, were up by 23 percent, while operating profit was £0.1 million, compared with an £0.1 million loss during the first six months of 2012.
The division, with its main facilities in the U.K. and U.S., comprises Arista Laboratories, an independent tobacco and smoke constituent analytical laboratory, and Cerulean, which supplies process and quality-control instruments to the tobacco industry, as well as other instruments and machinery to other industrial sectors.
Molins reported that order intake at Cerulean had been strong in most areas, with the key Chinese market remaining buoyant and its order book being boosted by a large, one-off project for a customer in North Africa.
Order intake at Arista Laboratories was lower than in the same period last year. Although it had been expected that regulatory requirements for the testing and reporting of tobacco product constituents in the U.S. would have been confirmed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the first half of the year, the regulatory framework had not been forthcoming, and the latest indication from the FDA was that guidance would be published in December, Molins said.
At the same time, sales by Molins’ Packaging Machinery division increased by 16 percent to £18.4 million, while operating profit was unchanged at £0.1 million.
“The increase in sales in the first half was supported by a strong opening order book, although margins were reduced as a result of an increase in high-engineering-content projects, with a lower proportion of sales of standardized machines,” Molins reported.
“The group has had a strong first half, with increases in both sales and underlying profit,” said Chief Executive Dick Hunter.
“We have continued our investment across the business, most notably in product development, as well as through the expansion of our Packaging Machinery presence in Asia.
“The order book supports the group’s full-year trading performance being second-half weighted as in previous years.
“The board’s expectation of performance for the full year remains unchanged.”
Hungary’s government is planning to ban tobacco sales in large retail spaces, according to an All Hungary Media Group report quoting a Magyar Hirlap story citing an unnamed government source.
Under the proposal, current legislation would be amended to prohibit tobacco shops from operating in retail spaces larger than 2,500 square meters.
Retail tobacco sales became a state monopoly in Hungary in July, partly because the licensing process this involved was seen as making it easier to prevent minors gaining access to tobacco products.
But some retailers are said to have moved into hypermarkets and shopping malls that tend to attract young people.
The government is said also to be considering a ban on tobacconists operating within 100 meters of schools.
Any changes are expected to come into force in January.
The Gallaher Group subsidiary of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) made misleading claims about standardized tobacco packaging, according to a Cancer Research UK (CRUK) statement quoting a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
CRUK said the ruling represented the third time this year that the ASA had upheld a complaint against JTI over unsubstantiated and misleading claims regarding standardized cigarette packaging.
As a result of the ruling, which was made in response to objections by CRUK, the offending regional press “advertisements” cannot appear again in their current form.
Under the advertisement headline, “How do you spot a fake pack of cigarettes?” the company said that “19 percent of independent shopkeepers in London were considering closure as a direct result of the illegal tobacco trade.”
“The claim made no mention of the effects of ‘cross-border shopping’ on trade—people legitimately buying tobacco overseas for consumption in the U.K.—and was based on results from a survey of members belonging to a group funded by the tobacco industry, not shopkeepers as a whole,” CRUK said.
The U.K. government has dropped the question of standardized tobacco packaging, at least for the time being, but EU Commission proposals, due to be voted on next month, could introduce a form of standardized packaging by the back door.
The full story is at http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/news/archive/cancernews/2013-08-29-Third-advert-from-Japan-Tobacco-International-ruled-misleading.
It is generally known that most smokers who quit their habit put on weight.
What is less well known is that about 80 percent of quitters put on an average of 7 kg each.
And what might come as a surprise to some people is that this weight increase occurs even if the quitters’ calorific intake remains the same as or even falls from the level before quitting.
According to a Medical Xpress story, researchers working with Gerhard Rogler of Zurich University Hospital attribute the cause of the weight gain to a changed composition of the bacterial diversity in the intestine.
“As they recently showed in PLoS One, the bacterial strains that also prevail in the intestinal flora of obese people take the upper hand in people giving up smoking,” the story said.
The full story is at http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-08-smokers-gain-weight.html.
Tobacco Rag Processors (TRP) has launched a state-of-the-art Dry Ice Expanded Tobacco (DIET) facility at its cut-filler processing plant in Wilson County, North Carolina, USA.
The DIET operation expands the cells of cut filler by using a high-pressure carbon dioxide-impregnation system. The carbon dioxide is then captured and reused. The benefit of expanded tobacco is higher volume and greater filling power while maintaining the same weight and taste.
“DIET tobacco has the ability to provide dramatic cost savings and stabilized deliveries on finished cigar, cigarette, pipe and roll-your-own products without sacrificing quality,” says Davis Miller, CEO of TRP. “We anticipate that by offering customers expanded tobacco in our cut filler products, we will continue to grow our business in the face of continuing governmental regulations and higher excise taxes.”
TRP expects to hire 25 additional people for the DIET plant. Currently, the company employs more than 100 employees in eastern North Carolina, spread among its cut filler operation, NC Filter and Recon USA joint venture.
Japan Tobacco Inc. is due shortly to launch three additions to its Mevius Premium Menthol range of products that will each include a ‘spread filter’.
Described as JT’s unique new menthol dispersion filter, the spread filter is said to deliver a ‘3D menthol sensation’.
The new filter has laser-created holes at its end that are designed to disperse the airflow and so provide a wider delivery of menthol not previously experienced.
The three additions to the 100 per cent natural menthol Mevius Premium Menthol range are Mevius Premium Menthol Spread One 100’s, Mevius Premium Menthol Spread 5, and Mevius Premium Menthol Spread 8.
These three products are due to rolled out across Japan in early October.
Oral products containing tobacco and ingredients deemed to be ‘food’ are to remain on the banned list in the Indian state of Punjab, according to a story in the most recent issue of the BBM Bommidala newsletter.
Punjab’s chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, has approved a proposal by the State Health and Family Welfare Department to extend the regulation banning the production, storage, distribution and sale of gutkha and pan masala for a further year.
Oral products containing tobacco and food ingredients are sold under a profusion of names in India; so the state has also banned ‘other products containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients by whatsoever name [they are] available in the market’, though presumably not potatoes and tomatoes.
The original notification of the ban was issued on September 5, 2012, and was due to expire on September 9, 2013.