Category: News This Week

Philip Morris Limited is to drop ‘Marlboro’ from the name of Marlboro Bright Leaf, the brand it developed to cater for the UK smoker’s preference for Virginia-blend cigarettes, according to a story in Talking Retail.

This month, Bright Leaf will appear in a new brand livery, though it will retain its status as a brand from the makers of Marlboro.

“Bright Leaf is a cigarette brand that we have developed especially with the UK adult smoker in mind, both in terms of taste delivery and contemporary packaging,” said Zoe Smith, marketing director UK & Ireland.

“Bright Leaf is not like any other Marlboro product, except for the quality, and the new packs are designed to clearly differentiate it from the iconic international Marlboro range.”

Phase one of the Bright Leaf launch will run for three weeks and feature a soft introduction to the new design by displaying the current pack graphics on three sides of a poly film with a ‘ripped reveal’ to the new pack that lies beneath.

The second phase will unveil the new designs in full while utilising the poly film across both variants to convey the ‘New pack. Same Taste’ message.

Although the revision of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) has the potential to save lives, the process that has been followed to date has been a tragedy of errors and the TPD is on course to do more harm than good, according to a piece by Jeff Stier and Dr. Karine Caunes published in Europolitics.

Stier is a senior fellow at the NationalCenter for Public Policy Research in WashingtonDC, and heads its Risk Analysis Division. Caunes is a scholar in residence at the ColumbiaEuropeanLegalStudiesCenter and is the associate editor of the European Journal of International Law.

Proposed revisions to the TPD were published by the European Commission on December 19, and they will now go before the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, the institutions responsible for adopting binding legislation.

‘The TPD continues the EU-wide ban on snus, the least harmful form of tobacco,’ said Stier and Caunes. ‘As a result, European smokers outside of Sweden are denied the dramatically lower and well-documented tobacco-related disease rates for Swedes, where snus is popular.

‘As usual, bad policy is often preceded by flawed process. It isn’t just “Dalli gate”*. That case was just a symptom of the broader lack of transparency and betrayal of regulatory procedures meant to ensure sensible policy making that benefits citizens. [*John Dalli resigned in October as European Health Commissioner after allegations linked him to a businessman who allegedly approached Swedish Match and offered to meet with Dalli regarding the EU’s policy on snus in exchange for €60 million.]

‘Central elements of the consultation process have been disregarded in a rush to produce a directive that blindly punishes tobacco users, rather than achieves the more nuanced goal of improving health…’

Stier and Caunes piece is at: http://www.europolitics.info/social/snus-saga-an-unfortunate-illustration-of-the-tpd-proposal-fiasco-art346769-26.html

“The tobacco lobby is not demonstrating enough transparency in the Dalli case*,” according to Inge Gräßle, MEP and EPP (European People’s Party) group co-ordinator in the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee. [*John Dalli resigned in October as European Health Commissioner after allegations linked him to a businessman who allegedly approached Swedish Match and offered to meet with Dalli regarding the EU’s policy on snus in exchange for €60 million.]

Gräßle’s comment followed what she said was the refusal, despite prior agreement, of Swedish Match to answer 54 questions tabled by the committee.

“The questions to the tobacco lobby regarding the Dalli case remain unanswered,” she said. “There are still many inconsistencies. It is a pity that the tobacco lobby has no interest in dispelling them.

“It is obvious that the Dalli case must have consequences for the future of lobbying in Brussels”, Gräßle said.

The inconsistencies were listed as:

* ‘Why has Swedish Match waited two-and-a-half months with its complaint about the alleged demand for money?

* ‘Why did tobacco lobbyists illegally tape telephone conversations? How much was OLAF [the EU’s anti-fraud office] involved?

* ‘Why were there several contacts after the complaint between the lobbyists and the Maltese person who allegedly asked for money?

* ‘Why did the tobacco lobby use persons not registered in the EU’s transparency register?

* ‘Why did the tobacco lobby deliberately look for access to persons with private contact with the Commissioner?

* ‘What was the month-long phase declared by Swedish Match as a preservation of evidence prior to the complaint about the alleged demand for money?

* ‘According to Swedish Match it asked the Swedish Government for advice. The Swedish Government has no knowledge of such a request.’

The 54 questions asked of Swedish Match are at:

http://www.eppgroup.eu/press/pdoc12/20121206swedish-match-questionnaire.pdf

Hauni’s new high-speed C48 unpacking station, the TH, is efficient, dependable and flexible, with an availability rating of close to 100 per cent, according to a company press note.

‘This new linear-axis unpacking station is able to unpack an average of 60 to 75 C48 boxes per hour – the maximum possible rate is 90,’ the note said. ‘Boxes can contain tobacco bales weighing anything up to 250 kg.

‘Two opposite lines, which can be handled by a single operator, remove the straps and paper liners, simultaneously performing an optical scan to check the quality of the tobacco. ‘Substandard bales can be removed simply by reversing the conveyor belt.

‘The operator has a sturdy platform to stand on and is not required to lift heavy boxes or fold up empty ones. The easy-to-operate TH takes both these jobs off his hands, and even places the automatically folded boxes in neat piles on europallets.’

The system is said to require a minimum of maintenance and to offer an availability figure close to 100 per cent.

It is said to be very reasonably priced compared with systems such as multi-axis robots. It features low life-cycle costs and miserly power consumption, which add up to an ‘excellent cost-to-benefit ratio’.

‘TH is easily integrated into any production line,’ the note said. ‘It has a small footprint and the versatility needed for conversion to different box sizes. Lengthwise and transverse box feed are both possible.

‘Apart from offering a range of optional extras, Hauni can also equip the unit with a barcode reader or an alternative identification system to simplify product tracking and tracing during the unpacking process.’

The tobacco commentator, Christopher E. Bickers, has warned of a looming shortage of barns to cure the US’ 2013 crop.

In the latest issue of his Tobacco Farmer Newsletter, Bickers says that the situation is especially urgent for flue-cured growers.

They were short on barn space in 2012, he said, and they seem to be looking to contract for higher volumes this year.

Bickers quotes the commodity director of the North Carolina Farm Bureau, Jay Boyette, as saying a lot of flue-cured barns are 20-25 years old and that the time might have come to replace them.

One other problem was that arrangements needed to be made soon because whereas 15 years ago manufacturers might have built barns on spec, nowadays they would need an order, perhaps a guaranteed order.

More information about the Tobacco Farmer Newsletter can be obtained by e-mailing Bickers at chrisbickers@gmail.com.

People carrying more than the permitted amount of cigarettes and alcohol when they fly into Taiwan no longer face the possibility of a prison sentence, according to a story in the Taiwanese edition of The China Post.

They are however liable to face a fine and to have the excess quantities confiscated.

The Post quoted the case of the man who had the honor to be the first person to have the new rule book thrown at him.

The man, known only as Tseng, arrived with 16 cartons of cigarettes, but ended up with only one carton and a NT7,500 fine (NT500 for each carton in excess of the limit of one carton).

Duty-paid cigarette sales in Spain during the first 11 months of 2012, at 2.482 billion packs, were down by 10.1 per cent on those of the first eleven months of 2011, according to a Cinco Días story quoting data from the country’s tobacco marketing commission.

Marlboro was said to have led the way with sales of 325 million packs, followed by Winston, Chesterfield and Fortuna.

In 2011, cigarette sales reached an historic low of 3.015 billion packs, a figure that was down by 16.7 per cent on that of 2010.

New measures introduced by Spainto clamp down on ‘low-level cigarette smuggling’ from Gibraltarhave come into force, according to a story in the Gibraltar Chronicle.

The measures cut existing tobacco allowances for frontier workers and residents of the Campo de Gibraltar by over a half

Up until now, people living within a radius of 15 km were allowed to carry one carton of cigarettes a month from Gibraltar intoSpain.

But a legislative measure approved in October as part of the Spanish budget reduced the permitted monthly allowance to four packs from January 1.

In the budget announcement, the Spanish government said the move was necessary to tackle a rise in the ‘abuse’ of existing tobacco allowances be people crossing from Gibraltar into Spain.