Category: News This Week

Black Buffalo Raises Capital

Image by S K from Pixabay
Black Buffalo, a company that makes and sells smokeless tobacco alternative products, has raised $9.75 million in growth capital. Investors included prominent financial companies such as Pendyne Capital, Watchfire Ventures and Open Pantry Food Marts. Black Buffalo plans to use this capital to expand its marketing presence, upgrade its manufacturing capacity, increase its online distribution and launch into convenience stores and physical retail outlets throughout the United States.
With proceeds from this capital raise, Black Buffalo has assembled premarket tobacco product applications for its entire product portfolio, which the company intends to submit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products in the coming months. Additionally, Black Buffalo has purchased and expects a second quarter 2020 delivery of a high-throughput pouch maker from one of the world’s leading industrial manufacturers.
May 12, 2020
Tax Free World Association Cancels Duty-Free Conference
The Tax Free World Association (TFWA) has canceled the 2020 TFWA World Exhibition and Conference scheduled for Sept. 27 to Oct. 2 due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The TFWA board and management committee took into account the continuing uncertainty surrounding the travel and health situation as well as the worldwide fall in industry activity.
“By agreeing significant reductions to space rental fees, making changes to the format and working with our partners in Cannes to reduce the cost of taking part in the event, we did what we could to attempt to ensure the TFWA World Exhibition and Conference could take place,” said Alain Maingreaud, TFWA president.
“Since making those changes, we have monitored the situation daily and been in constant contact with our members and partners. The way in which the situation has developed with the economic impact of the crisis becoming increasingly serious amid continuing uncertainty over restrictions on travel has forced us to review our plans.
“The management committee was unanimous in its decision to cancel the 2020 edition and in its desire for the association’s events to play a central role in the industry’s recovery from 2021.
“The cancellation of TFWA World Exhibition and Conference will have a significant impact on the association’s finances, but thanks to the sound management of our resources up to now, we have been able to build reserves to help us cope with difficult periods such as this.
“We remain determined to do all we can to help our industry emerge from its most difficult period, keep our members and partners informed and help coordinate our industry’s response to the current crisis.”
May 12, 2020
WHO: Smoking Does Not Prevent Covid-19

Image by 4924546 from Pixabay
World Health Organization (WHO) officials stated that smoking does not protect individuals from contracting Covid-19, contrary to some studies that have surfaced stating the opposite.
“There are some media reports on studies that have not been peer-reviewed that have looked at smoking prevalence among people hospitalized with Covid-19,” said epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on Covid-19 response at the WHO Health Emergencies Program. “These studies were not designed to evaluate whether smoking was protective or not in any shape or form. And they do not say that smoking is protective.
“The harms of tobacco are well known, and we know that millions of people die every year from tobacco use. Covid-19 is a respiratory illness, and smoking causes damage to the lungs,” she said. “A number of studies have found that smoking leads to the development of severe diseases and puts people at higher risk of being put on a ventilator, being admitted to intensive care and eventually of dying. We know the harms of smoking and we know that smokers, if they do get infected with Covid-19, have a higher risk of severe disease and death.”
May 11, 2020
Report: Pandemic Impact Will Last for a Long Time

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The disruption caused by the coronavirus will be felt for a long time even in the traditionally recession-resilient tobacco industry, according to a new report made available by Research and Markets.
“This report examines the outlook for the coronavirus (Covid-19) global pandemic on the tobacco industry,” according to Businesswire. “The social, economic and health effects of the Covid-19 crisis will be felt in every global market for several years to come. While it is the case that the tobacco industry is less dramatically impacted in the near term in most (though not all) world markets, the temptation to treat the pandemic as a short period of disruption before a return to normalcy should be avoided.”
The report covers the economic outlook, industry impact, geographic impact and the corporate response to the pandemic.
May 11, 2020
Philip Morris Challenges Health Warnings

Image by jessica45 from Pixabay
Philip Morris USA filed a lawsuit on May 6 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the graphic cigarette warnings that tobacco companies will be required to print on their products in the United States starting June 18, 2021.
It follows a similar lawsuit filed last month by other tobacco companies in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
This is the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) second attempt to enact graphic health warnings under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The first rule was struck down by the federal court in the District of Columbia as a violation of the First Amendment. The plaintiffs in Texas case state that this version of the FDA’s rule is no improvement and urge the court to strike down both the rule and the Tobacco Control Act’s graphic-warnings requirement as violations of the First Amendment.
The companies allege that FDA’s required warnings force plaintiffs to become a “mouthpiece for the government’s anti-smoking advocacy” and are “precisely the type of compelled speech that the First Amendment prohibits.”
The new rule includes 11 graphic images paired with textual warnings. Among other smoking-related afflictions, the images depict a person with neck cancer, ill children and bloody urine
Also on May 6, the plaintiffs and the government in the Texas case jointly proposed to delay the implementation date for the graphic warnings for four months, from June 18, 2021, to Oct. 16, 2021.
Public health advocates expressed outrage at the legal challenge. “It is truly shameless for tobacco companies to file these lawsuits at a time when there is clear evidence that smoking can increase risk of severe complications and even death from Covid-19,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“We urge the Administration to vigorously defend these warnings in court and urge the court to reject the proposed four-month delay.”
May 8, 2020
Boka Opens Auction Floor in Karoi

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Boka Tobacco Floors (BTF) has opened a tobacco sales floor in Karoi, Mashonaland West Province. This sales floor will help reduce the number of farmers traveling to Harare to sell their tobacco, ultimately helping prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
The Boka selling floor will serve farmers in Hurungwe District, including Tengwe, Kazangarare, communities around Karoi, Nyama resettlement, Nyamakate and Magunje as well as areas around Chinhoyi.
The auction space is currently a rented building, but BTF is constructing a 12,000-square-meter facility that would be ready for the 2021 selling season.
Measures compliant with the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) have been put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
May 7, 2020
CEO Upbeat About PMI’s Prospects Despite Crisis

Andre Calantzopoulos | Photo: PMI
Despite the uncertainty created by the coronavirus crisis, CEO Andre Calantzopoulos expressed confidence in the midterm outlook for Philip Morris International (PMI) during the company’s 2020 annual meeting of shareholders.
“Our main focus at this time is on the health and well-being of our employees, their families and the communities in which we operate,” said Calantzopoulos.
“The strong, underlying performance of our business, especially the impressive growth of reduced-risk products, was evident in our full-year 2019 and first-quarter 2020 results. However, there is considerable uncertainty as to the development and duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic and social consequences, including those which impact our operating environment and our consumers.
“We remain confident in our structural midterm growth prospects and, when the current headwinds have passed, expect to resume growth consistent with our 2019 to 2021 currency neutral compound annual growth targets. Crucially, our organization, liquidity and balance sheet are strong. We will continue to protect and support our employees, serve our consumers and reward our shareholders, which includes our strong commitment to our dividend.”
This year’s shareholders meeting was held in virtual format only.
An archived copy of the webcast will be available for approximately one year from the date of the meeting. Presentation slides and script will also be available.
May 7, 2020
FDA Wants to Delay Graphic Warnings

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked a federal judge in Texas to delay the effective date of a rule requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packages due to the outbreak of Covid-19, reports Reuters.
The FDA and tobacco companies that are suing the agency have asked the court to delay the effective date from June 18, 2021, to Oct. 16, 2021.
May 7, 2020
Malawi: Tobacco Earnings up by 27 Percent

Archive footage: The Lilongwe tobacco auction in 2017
Malawi earned MWK7 billion ($9.51 million) from tobacco sales since the selling season opened two weeks ago, reports The Nyasa Times.
According to Tobacco Commission spokesman Hellings Nasolo, this is MWK2 billion more than what the country earned in 2019.
“The market is very impressive,” he told The Nyasa Times. “This is an increase of 27 percent.”
Tobacco markets are now open in Lilongwe, Limbe, Chinkhoma. All sales floors have implemented strict measures to prevent spread of the coronavirus.
May 7, 2020
Revenues up for 22nd Century Group

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
22nd Century Group saw a net sales revenue increase of 12 percent, or $0.8 million, in the first quarter of 2020 over last year.
The company suffered an operating loss of $4.1 million compared to $5.4 million in 2019.
“We are very pleased with the solid start to 2020, with revenue increasing 12 percent over last year,” said Mike Zercher, president and chief operating officer of 22nd Century. “We believe the company is well positioned to execute on its strategies despite a challenging backdrop due to Covid-19. Our manufacturing facility has remained open and has been able to fulfill orders without any backlog. The improvements we made to our cost structure in 2019 have started to pay off in the first quarter with a 16 percent reduction in operating expenses compared to the same quarter last year.
“Additionally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced a deadline for public comments on the company’s modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) application. This moves our MRTP application one step closer to an FDA authorization decision for the company’s proprietary reduced nicotine content tobacco cigarettes. Bringing these products to market is an important and exciting prospect for the company and public health,” Zercher added.
May 7, 2020