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  • Something to Smile About

    Something to Smile About

    The CoEHAR is studying the impact of reduced-risk products on oral health.

    Photo: Andrei

    By Stefanie Rossel

    Polosa and his team anticipate observing better gingival/gum conditions, improved tooth color and reduced dental plaque accumulation in smokers who stop smoking after switching to alternative tar-free nicotine products. | Photo: Chris Frenzi

    In the context of smoking-related issues, oral health has long been neglected. According to Riccardo Polosa, founder of the Center of Excellence for the acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) in Italy, this can be explained by several factors. “Smoking is primarily linked to fatal systemic conditions such as cancer, heart disease and respiratory problems, which tend to overshadow its effects on oral health,” he says.

    In addition, until recently, dentists were less aware of the detrimental impact of smoking on oral health, particularly in managing gum disease, tooth loss and dental implant procedures. What’s more, because oral health is influenced by multiple factors, including diet, oral hygiene practices and genetic predispositions, it is difficult to isolate smoking as a culprit.

    “Dentists have historically been hesitant to invest their professional efforts in helping clients quit smoking,” Polosa says. “However, there is now an increasing recognition among dental professionals of the significant benefits of smoking cessation in improving treatment outcomes, and more and more dentists are increasingly promoting smoking cessation strategies and advocating for the use of tar-free nicotine products.”

    To investigate changes in oral health parameters and dental aesthetics in smokers who switch to tar-free nicotine products, the CoEHAR earlier this year launched the SMILE study with funding from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), which recently rebranded as Global Action to End Smoking. Polosa says the study is the first and only of its kind, as it aims to measure risk reduction, harm reversal and smoking cessation combined, which sets it apart from other trials that focus solely on cessation.

    Geographically Diverse Approach

    The international, randomized controlled trial involves 474 participants in four countries—153 in Catania (Italy), 45 in Warsaw (Poland), 168 in Chisinau (Moldova) and 108 in Bandung (Indonesia). The decision to focus on these countries was based on strategic and practical considerations, Polosa explains. “Mandated by the FSFW’s mission, the selection of low[-income] and middle-income countries was crucial to facilitate the dissemination of high-quality tobacco harm reduction [THR] science through collaborative partnerships and knowledge exchange,” he says. “Additionally, factors such as low operational costs and strong interest in participating in the study were significant in their inclusion. Italy was specifically chosen to take a leadership role in training and coordination within the study.”

    All four countries have high smoking rates, providing a substantial pool of participants for studying smoking cessation and switching behaviors. “The selection of these countries enables the SMILE study to capture a broad spectrum of socioeconomic, healthcare and cultural factors that influence smoking behavior and the adoption of THR,” says Polosa. Each country represents a distinct healthcare system, ranging from well-established systems in Italy and Poland to less developed systems in Moldova and Indonesia. This diversity enhances the study’s relevance and generalizability on a global scale.”

    Indonesia presents a unique case due to its widespread use of clove cigarettes, which account for nearly 90 percent of the Indonesian cigarette market. “Studying THR in a context where very popular traditional tobacco products dominate can offer valuable insights into cultural attitudes toward smoking cessation and alternative nicotine-delivery systems,” says Polosa. “Smoke from clove cigarettes contains high particulate matter and toxicants, making them as harmful as conventional tobacco cigarettes. Therefore, THR is strongly needed in Indonesia, with advocacy and education being key to successful implementation.”

    Dentists increasingly recognize the significant benefits of smoking cessation in improving treatment outcomes. | Photo: RomanR

    State-of-the-Art Technologies

    For their study, the SMILE researchers recruited cigarette smokers interested in switching to alternative products. The participants were randomly allocated to receive either standard care, including cessation counseling (i.e., “very brief advice”), or the nicotine product of their choice plus very brief advice. The trial also includes a reference group of individuals who had never smoked. The researchers then recorded participants’ cigarette consumption and tar-free nicotine product at every visit. Additionally, participants were asked to return all empty, partly used and unused consumables. Throughout the study, the researchers monitored smoking and tar-free nicotine product use via a tracker app.

    “The SMILE tracker app is an integral component of the SMILE study, designed to monitor participants’ behaviors and lifestyle choices. Through daily prompts, the app assists in tracking cigarette consumption, the use of nicotine products, and regular oral hygiene practices such as brushing, flossing and mouthwash use. Although personal oral hygiene practices were carefully tracked, there was no emphasis on oral hygiene education or management of dietary patterns,” says Polosa.

    “A standardized approach was implemented to mitigate the effect of these potential confounders on both primary and secondary study endpoints,” he continues. “Participants were explicitly advised to continue their established oral hygiene practices for the entire duration of the study. Furthermore, adherence to specific restriction criteria before each scheduled study visit was emphasized to prevent any confounding of the collected data.”

    To prevent confounding factors, oral hygienists removed plaque, calculus and stain from the study participants’ teeth 14 days prior to baseline measurements. “This critical element is absent in most clinical trials,” says Polosa.

    Chronic periodontal disease is common in smokers that is unlikely to improve with cessation alone, according to Polosa. “Therefore, participants with periodontitis have been excluded, and only participants with mild to moderate gingivitis have been recruited, as they are more likely to maximize the impact of the intervention.”

    The researchers use state-of-the-art technologies, such as spectrophotometers and quantitative light-induced fluorescence scanners, to quantify tooth discoloration and the amount of dental plaque.

    “These study endpoints measure important patient factors that may drive behavior change,” says Polosa. “This is particularly persuasive for young adults, for whom a cardiovascular-cancer-respiratory risk-based narrative is either ineffective or counterproductive and for whom concern about bad breath and poor dental aesthetics due to enamel discoloration and ‘tar’ stains may be a much more significant reason to stop smoking.”

    The Importance of Aesthetics

    The SMILE study allows volunteers to choose their own type of tar-free nicotine product, says Polosa. “This personalized choice is likely to enhance adherence, retention, and optimize compliance, thus maximizing cessation of tobacco cigarettes,” he explains. “This unique approach also generates results that are not product-specific and therefore more generalizable and realistic for implementing such a strategy in the real world.”

    According to Polosa, the researchers enroll only those who would not otherwise commit to a smoking cessation counseling program but are prepared to choose from smoking alternatives such as e-cigarettes and tobacco-heating products. The study has been designed to allow participants to tailor their own “nicotine experience” by selecting the tar-free nicotine product that aligns most with their preferences, thereby maximizing the transition away from tobacco smoking and reducing the likelihood of relapse.

    The study is not designed to coerce participants to avoid tobacco smoking completely, he says. Dual use is not prevented; therefore, the sample size has been oversampled to ensure that enough exclusive users of tar-free nicotine products by the end of the study are included.

    “The SMILE study also provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact on oral health and dental aesthetics among individuals who simultaneously smoke conventional cigarettes and use tar-free nicotine products,” says Polosa. “Different dual-use patterns exist—e.g., strong switchers versus light switchers—and are likely to have varying impacts on overall oral health. We expect to observe progressive changes with different patterns of dual use.”

    Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the SMILE study is its inclusion of aesthetics. Polosa says that stained teeth and tobacco odors are a growing concern, especially among young smokers, who demand not only healthy mouths but good-looking smiles.

    “Everyone wants to have a perfect dentition, as it helps in interpersonal contacts and raises value in the job market,” he says. “In our social media-driven age, vanity plays a significant role in influencing behavior. The desire for an attractive appearance, including a bright smile, is often a powerful motivator, especially among younger demographics who are highly engaged with social media platforms.”

    Evidence from literature demonstrates that using images of damaged and tar-riddled lungs does not act as an effective deterrent to smoking, he says. “This is partly because people do not respond well to negative messaging and because they do not identify such images with their own bodies. The focus on aesthetics—rather than vanity—is important because we are conveying a positive outcome message for smoking cessation, leveraging the explosion in social media posts of happy, healthy people with bright smiles.”

    Appealing to individuals’ desire to present themselves well and feel confident not only acknowledges the importance of aesthetics but also offers practical solutions for oral healthcare practitioners, such as aesthetic-enhancing alternative nicotine products for those who may struggle to quit smoking, according to Polosa. “The goal here is to harness today’s emphasis on appearance to encourage healthier behavior,” he says. “I predict that the argument for better aesthetics and oral health will become a more prominent and effective tool in smoking cessation efforts.”

    The study’s results are expected in 2025. Polosa and his team anticipate observing better gingival/gum conditions, improved tooth color and reduced dental plaque accumulation in smokers who stop smoking after switching to alternative tar-free nicotine products.

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • The Case for Nicotine

    The Case for Nicotine

    Image: Maridav

    Many policymakers see nicotine as part of the problem; THR proponents see it as part of the solution. Understanding why such deeply opposing views are held also provides a view of the way ahead.

    By Barnaby Page

    Advocates of tobacco harm reduction (THR) and the industry making THR products are accustomed to fighting battles on multiple fronts—simultaneously contending with the threat of flavor bans, new taxes and misrepresentations of science, for example. But perhaps the most essential battle of all is the one against the demonization of nicotine; it’s possible to imagine vaping continuing to exist without nontobacco flavors, for example (even if it might be a less appealing kind of vaping), and it’s possible to imagine consumers continuing to buy THR products even if taxes hike their price, but it’s not really possible to imagine THR without nicotine.

    This means that, while its opponents are not wrong to say that that nicotine is to an extent an initiator and certainly a perpetuator of smoking, it’s also a “friend” as much as an “enemy” in the quest to reduce smoking rates and smoking-related harm. Persuading others, including lawmakers, the medical profession and the public health establishment, to see it this way is a key and decidedly nontrivial task for the THR movement, one that could have profound effects on future policy and regulation concerning THR products and therefore their uptake.

    Smoking and Addiction

    Opposition to nicotine probably derives, at heart, from two somewhat different but related factors: cigarettes and addiction. First, it’s easy to forget—but essential to remember—that until around a decade ago, nicotine effectively meant cigarettes for most people in most countries. Sure, there were other delivery mechanisms (e-cigarettes were already starting to make their presence known; oral products of different kinds had traction in some places; a few people even smoked cigars or pipes), but the cigarette was dominant … and so for the average person, who in a specialist field like this also includes the average policymaker, nicotine was inextricably tied to smoking, which in turn was inextricably tied to combustible cigarettes.

    As a result, it’s not surprising that many people find it difficult to separate the effects of nicotine from the effects of cigarette smoking in their head. (Even some people who ought to know better seem to find it tough.) Meanwhile, public health messaging had for decades reinforced the same point—Superman’s foe, the evil Nick O’Teen, is a classic example.

    Plus, and this brings us to the second point, nicotine was not only that generally sinister thing, a “chemical,” but it was one you could become addicted to. Again, it’s understandable that people who weren’t specialists in addiction science wouldn’t realize that the concept itself was a much-debated thing, and people who had grown up in a War on Drugs era when “drug addicts” were seen as an undifferentiated group of miserable, ruined junkies naturally saw addiction itself—regardless of the addictive substance concerned—as a terrible condition.

    Again, of course, there are those who ought to know better who use the concept to spread distrust; it amused me a few years ago when the then U.S. surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said that nicotine was “as addictive as heroin.” Leaving aside the whole issue of how you assess comparative addictiveness, the logical corollary here was that heroin is no more addictive than nicotine, but I doubt he would have wanted to spread that as a public health message.

    THR advocates need to recognize that the perception is just as potent as the reality.

    The Power of Perception

    In any case, some definitions of addiction or dependency now stipulate that it must be harmful, and it’s highly questionable whether nicotine—once separated from cigarette smoking—falls into that category. So there’s even a case to be made that nicotine addiction doesn’t exist as a problem in the first place. But the bottom line is that it is widely perceived to be harmful and addictive.

    And that is a huge obstacle for THR to overcome. Nicotine is absolutely central to the THR proposition. Indeed, it is founded on the distinction between nicotine and smoking, as famously expressed by Michael Russell when he observed that people smoke for the nicotine but die from the byproducts of smoking. It is the ability to make this distinction that leads to the concept of the continuum of risk—the idea that though different product categories (cigarettes, oral, vapor, heated tobacco, nicotine-replacement therapy [NRT] and so on) may all deliver nicotine, they do so with different risks, with some categories (for example, NRT, pouch and vape) at the bottom of the range while others (all of them involving combustion) are at the maximum.

    This concept is hardly news to anyone involved in THR or indeed anyone in the tobacco industry. But it’s worth repeating that it may not only be an unfamiliar idea but an apparently contradictory one to people outside those worlds if they believe that risk is inherent to nicotine use. Before any progress can be made on improving policy and regulation, this is a misconception that needs to be corrected, and for the reasons that I’ve discussed, it can be quite a deep-seated one. Of course it’s illogical—it’s like concluding that because it is very dangerous to drive on icy roads at high speed, it must be equally dangerous to drive on any road at any speed—but being illogical doesn’t mean it’s not thoroughly believed in by many people.

    The continuum of risk also means that where public health is concerned, logical regulation would focus on the delivery mechanisms (the icy road and the 90 mph) rather than the nicotine (the existence of cars). Except insofar as it may encourage use of more-risky delivery mechanisms, it doesn’t make sense for nicotine itself to be a prime concern. The on-off debate about very low-nicotine cigarettes (VLNCs) is a vivid illustration of this; there are surely questions to be asked about a policy that retains the dangerous thing (combustion) and concentrates on eliminating the far less dangerous thing (nicotine). To be fair, the research on how consumers might use VLNCs in real life is not yet conclusive, and it is possible they would have a deterrent effect beneficial to public health. But it’s difficult to escape the impression that the image of the evil Nick O’Teen is lurking in the background here as well.

    A survey on U.S. vape stores published in 2023 by ECigIntelligence, one of a regular series, found that misconceptions about vaping—which often means misconceptions about nicotine—are a persistent problem.

    What Regulation Might Look Like

    Of course, we can’t realistically expect that lawmakers are going to leave nicotine entirely alone. So if we were going to regulate nicotine the substance—as opposed to characteristics of the delivery mechanisms, and nonproduct issues such as minimum purchase age, advertising and public usage—what areas could be looked at?

    We could regulate nicotine content, which we could measure in two ways: either absolutely—the total amount in a cigarette stick or a vape pod, for example—or comparatively, by measuring concentration. The latter makes more sense for product categories where there is notable variation in product size (for example, e-liquid bottles).

    We could also look at regulating the nicotine yield, which is the amount of nicotine actually emitted from the product and thus available for consumption by the user; although clearly dependent on the nicotine content level to some extent, this is a more meaningful number in terms of effects. (A hypothetical product with very high content yet very low yield would contain an awful lot of nicotine that might just as well not have existed—it would be irrelevant in any calculation of risk or health impact.)

    We could also look at nicotine flux, the rate of nicotine emission—a crucial difference between combustible cigarettes and vapes, for example, and one that strongly affects the actual experience of use. And finally, just to be complete, of course we would want to regulate safety where nicotine is sold in very high concentrations such that accidental consumption of a relatively small amount could have seriously deleterious effects. The perception of risk here is, again, quite possibly exaggerated, but measures like childproofing do nothing to undermine the value of THR, they may prevent some accidents, and many countries have implemented them. This aspect, at least, is a no-brainer ….

    But (apart from the childproof caps) does regulating nicotine itself actually solve any problems that aren’t addressed by, for instance, regulating underage purchase—especially if we don’t consider dependency in itself, among adults, to be a problem?

    The THR movement will have to work relentlessly to keep the focus on risk profiles of delivery mechanisms, not on nicotine.

    The Gateway Effect

    The biggest contender for “problem to be solved” could, of course, be the so-called “gateway effect”—the idea that even when less risky forms of nicotine consumption are available, enjoyment of and/or dependency on them (take your pick) could lead the user toward more-risky forms.

    A logical riposte would be that though doubtless there are individual cases of such a gateway being passed through (as there are individual cases of almost anything you care to imagine), there is no convincing evidence of it happening on a large scale—and in any case, other measures could deter it. If we want to prevent people progressing from vapes to combustibles, the THR argument would go, surely it’s sensible to make vapes more attractive and combustibles less (whether that’s through differential taxation, marketing restrictions, flavor restrictions or other measures). Going in the other direction—for example, reducing nicotine levels in THR products (which are often less effective than combustibles at delivering nicotine to the body anyway)—would likely just have the effect of making THR less attractive to existing smokers and discourage them from switching.

    Nevertheless, the gateway effect is a widespread concern that ties in at an emotional level with the idea of nicotine as an irresistibly addictive substance leading users further and further into its grip. And once again, THR advocates need to recognize that, as is so often in this field, the perception is just as potent as the reality—often more so. Addressing that will be a long and tough task, but the agenda for THR should be clear.

    The THR movement will have to work relentlessly to keep the focus on risk profiles of delivery mechanisms, not on nicotine itself. It will have to encourage policy based on proven risk, not on nicotine-specific characteristics such as concentration that in themselves don’t obviously connect to risk. It will have to put forward convincingly the idea that THR products need to be at least as attractive to the consumer as combustible products if their public health potential is to be realized—this means, in effect, undertaking the very difficult task of persuading policymakers that we should encourage nicotine consumption via THR.

    And, to achieve all this, it will have to educate not just policymakers but also health professionals, the media and the public. This includes actively countering misinformation, but simply saying people are wrong is clearly not going to be persuasive in itself, and it’s those THR advocates who engage directly and deeply with the “nicotine skeptics” who will end up making the biggest difference.

    For not only can nicotine be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, ignoring this is also a risk in itself. We shouldn’t lose the focus on reducing smoking by becoming distracted into reducing nicotine consumption.

    Barnaby Page is the editorial director of Tamarind Intelligence, the publisher of ECigIntelligence, TobaccoIntelligence and CannIntelligence. As a journalist, he has been covering the worldwide reduced-risk nicotine sector since 2014, with a particular focus on public health and regulatory issues.In his current role, he manages Tamarind’s editorial and reporting teams, producing a wide range of nicotine-related content. He previously spent 30 years as a reporter and editor for newspapers, magazines and online services, specializing in technology and business. He is based near London, England.
  • The Heart of HTMS

    The Heart of HTMS

    woodthorpe
    Ron Woodthorpe

    Celebrating the life and legacy of Ronald Woodthorpe

    By Marissa Dean

    Ronald Woodthorpe passed away on March 26, 2024, at age 86 after a three-year fight with dementia. He is missed by his surviving family and friends, but his legacy remains at the heart of Hampshire Tobacco Machinery Services (HTMS).

    Born in London in 1938, Woodthorpe was always a hard worker, training as a toolmaker after finishing secondary school. He took a job with Robert Legg in 1964 as a toolmaker—the company manufactured tobacco machinery and domestic appliances at the time. The next year, Robert Legg was acquired by American Machine Foundry Co. and renamed AMF-Legg, specializing in machinery for preliminary leaf processing and the processing and manufacture of cigarette and pipe tobacco. During this time, Woodthorpe developed a love for the industry that would span decades.

    In 1974, Woodthorpe was approached by John Payne, a director from AMF-Legg, with the idea to start a new business reengineering and upgrading machines for the tobacco industry. Thus, John Payne Engineering was born, and Woodthorpe was named technical director. The company quickly grew, supporting larger manufacturers like Imperial and BAT. Woodthorpe was involved with developing an upgraded, faster hinge-lid packer based on the Molins HLP 2 during his time at the company, and he inspired a technology transfer with Bulgartabac in the 1970s.

    John Payne Engineering was eventually sold in 1986 to Evered Holdings and later became part of GBE International. This didn’t sit well with Woodthorpe, who decided to start his own business: HTMS.

    HTMS began as a supply company in 1987, supplying spare parts for Molins and Sasib/AMF machinery from a small office and store in Southampton. Woodthorpe’s contacts in the industry supported him, and the business developed well. In 1988, Woodthorpe’s daughter, Gillian, was hired to assist with business administration. Two engineers were then hired to facilitate workshop activity.

    Three years later, the company moved to a larger office with stores beneath and a separate workshop facility. There, they began rebuilding Sasib/AMF soft packing machinery lines. Within the next five years, Woodthorpe’s daughter-in-law, Sara Fielder, and his youngest son, Peter, joined the company. By 1998, HTMS moved again to a larger space across the road, which is where it currently resides.

    Over the next couple years, HTMS bought the rights, technical drawings and casting patterns for the high-speed XL Hinge Lid Packer from John Payne Engineering and GBE making and packing, and Robert Brown, a Molins packing expert who worked with Woodthorpe at John Payne Engineering, was hired. The hinge-lid packer became HTMS’ flagship machine, and Brown’s addition to the team allowed Woodthorpe to further develop the high-speed hinge-lid packer and its associated downstream machinery.

    Woodthorpe was determined, a hard worker, a hard taskmaster and a man who generally would not take no for an answer. The tough standards he placed on himself were reflected in his work ethic and care—he tried every day to do the best he could for his business and his family. Those who knew him felt he was a very fair man who would always get you where you wanted to be and would support you in a time of need.

    “Ron always saw the best in people and encouraged those to find it in themselves,” said Brown. “In that way, he inspired others to achieve levels that they never thought possible, and I was certainly one of those. As long as you tried your best, you were never a failure in Ron’s eyes.”

    HTMS continues Woodthorpe’s ethos of service—the ability to supply immediately and support in times of need. HTMS understands that off-the-shelf supply is paramount to the business and its customers, thanks to Woodthorpe’s dedication and care over the years. Today, the company’s main focus is cigarette and cigar packaging, but it still provides primary equipment in the form of tobacco-cutting machinery and cigarette/cigar making machinery and spares. 

    “People talk about a work-life balance—well, Ron was one of the only people I’ve ever known who loved to ‘live to work’ as much as he did ‘work to live,’ simply because he had an equal amount of love and passion for work as he did his family,” said Sara. “Ron worked longer and harder than most because he wanted to make sure his family were taken care of but also because he loved the job and everything that it encompassed.

    “Ron’s dedication to taking care of ‘all of us’ over the years gave us, the HTMS team, the drive to continue in succeeding where he left off after his retirement, even more so now to continue further to honor his memory,” she said.

    Dedication is a clear theme of Woodthorpe’s life. He retired in 2020 at age 83 after a full life and career, leaving his company under the care of Peter, Sara and Jeff Perress. Even when he retired, it was less from a desire to retire and more from Covid-19 pandemic concerns, according to his son.

    In 2021, Woodthorpe was diagnosed with vascular dementia. Despite the struggles that caring for a loved one with dementia brings, Peter remembers his dad’s lessons of “Never put off till tomorrow what you can achieve today” and “If it’s not fun, don’t do it.”

    HTMS carries Woodthorpe’s core beliefs in quality, value and service at the heart of the business. And though he will be missed, his legacy will live on. “Ron’s enthusiasm, dedication and enjoyment for the job was passed on to all who worked for him,” said Howard Rich, a former colleague.

    Marissa Dean joined Tobacco Reporter in the summer of 2018 as a copy editor.Since that time, she has taken on additional responsibilities, including feature writing.Her skills span the publishing industry from layout and design to copy editing to content creation.
  • A Drop in the Ocean

    A Drop in the Ocean

    Photo: digieye

    The FDA’s first premarket approval of a mentholated vape product reflects poorly on the agency’s authorization process.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    Lindsay Stroud

    On June 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the first time authorized nontobacco-flavored vape products through its premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) pathway. The agency issued marketing granted orders (MGO) for two Njoy Ace menthol flavor pods and two disposable e-cigarettes, Njoy Daily Menthol 4.5 percent and Njoy Daily Extra Menthol 2.4 percent. The news was hailed as a “significant decision” and a “watershed moment for the sector” that will have a “huge and significant impact” on the global reduced-risk products market.

    Upon closer inspection, however, the authorization is less of a breakthrough than these superlatives suggest. Instead, it again highlights the many problems with the agency’s authorization process for electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) and novel nicotine products.

    Lindsey Stroud, senior fellow with the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, describes the recent FDA authorization as a small step in the right direction in what has otherwise been a regulatory nightmare. “While allowing the sale of a nontobacco-flavored ENDS, FDA seems to understand that adults who use menthol-flavored combustible cigarettes should have access to products which are significantly less harmful,” she says. “Unfortunately, the FDA still continues to deny the sale of all other flavored ENDS, despite their effectiveness in helping adults quit smoking and remain smoke-free.”

    Stroud is also concerned about the informal market. “Despite FDA not having issued authorization orders for flavored ENDS, a large, unregulated marketplace exists in the United States—99.9 percent of which are nontobacco flavored,” she says. “FDA must recognize the role that other flavors play in tobacco harm reduction because denialism isn’t stopping the flourishing non-FDA-authorized ENDS marketplace.”

    Jeffrey Smith

    Jeffrey Smith, a senior fellow in harm reduction at the R Street Institute, says he welcomes any action by the FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) that supports reduced-risk options for those who smoke. “Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of things, the awarding of an MGO to the four Njoy menthol variants is unlikely to be a sign of a significant shift in the decision-making process at the CTP,” he says. “If the regulatory environment does not change through external pressures, it is unlikely that the actions of the CTP will evolve in a swift and effective manner.”

    Gray Market to Persist

    While optimists may detect a new willingness to approve reduced-risk products (RRPs) in the CTP’s recent product authorizations, few expect the regulatory floodgates to open to an avalanche of product approvals.

    “Since the awarding of the Njoy menthol products, there haven’t been any additional actions or signals that more may be coming,” says Smith. “The only additional communications I have seen from the CTP since the Njoy announcement was a letter from the FDA to the clerk of the Supreme Court informing the court that the CTP had granted a marketing order to four menthol-flavored e-cigarette products. The case is the Logic v. FDA, where Logic is arguing that the CTP had adopted a blanket policy of rejecting menthol-flavored products.”

    Stroud says the menthol announcement is a positive development but notes that the FDA remains opposed to any flavors that don’t exist in traditional tobacco products. “Dr. Brian King, director for the Center for Tobacco Products, is very anti-flavor, if not anti-vape,” she says. “Going back to at least 2015 and his time at the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], King has been first to tout the Bloomberg party line that ‘flavors hook kids.’ This is in direct contrast to U.S. youth survey data, which finds flavors as one of the least-cited reasons why youth vape. FDA must recognize the role of flavors, their appeal to adults who smoke and how flavors help to reinforce a negative taste—literally—associated with combustible cigarette smoke. Until FDA recognizes this, the U.S. ENDS market will remain a large gray market.”

    Unlike most other vape products that have received FDA authorization to date, the Njoy menthol variants are technologically up to date and relatively popular with consumers. “According to Altria’s first-quarter 2024 report, Njoy made up 4.3 percent of the U.S. retail market, but this will likely grow as Njoy is now the only menthol-flavored—and nontobacco-flavored—ENDS product legally permitted to be for sale in the U.S.,” says Stroud.

    She is undecided about the FDA decision’s potential impact on the global RRP landscape. “I would imagine that with FDA recognizing the importance of menthol, most countries would follow the agency’s findings,” she says. “Unfortunately, due to a de facto flavor ban in the U.S., there is precedent for countries to restrict flavors, despite them not experiencing a huge surge in youth vaping as the U.S. did in 2019.”

    “The awarding of a marketing granted order to the four Njoy menthol variants is unlikely to be a sign of a significant shift in the decision-making process at the CTP.”

    Depressing Number

    Nicotine companies have long lamented the FDA’s product authorization process, which they say is needlessly time-consuming and costly and favors deep-pocketed players over less generously resourced applicants. Stroud and Smith believe the process can be streamlined only through external interventions.

    To illustrate the challenge, Stroud recalls the tremendous technological progress in ENDS products, which went from cigalikes to larger open systems, back to pods and then on to disposables. “The FDA’s draconian regulations don’t account for the technological improvement that has been applied to ENDS,” she says. “FDA and Congress could reform the Tobacco Control Act [TCA] in a huge way if they pushed the predicate date further ahead than February 2007. Requiring ENDS to undergo extensive testing and a massive bureaucratic application process is not only a farce to public health, but it restricts innovation and competition, which is very un-American.”

    With Congressional assistance and a reworking of the TCA, the FDA could establish a notification process for new products and then focus on post-market surveillance to monitor the public health effects of the new products, according to Shroud.

    “The FDA must also recognize what percentage of youth is permittable,” she says. “No other consumer good in America has been forced to deal with so much scrutiny that even one kid using the product is one kid too many. While youth vaping was a problem in 2019, it declined by more than 60 percent in the years since—all while the non-FDA-authorized ENDS market grew exponentially. FDA must recognize that adults are using these products and that their use is associated with a 10 percent decrease in cigarette units sold in America in 2023. That’s a win for public health. FDA must reform the process so we can accelerate even further declines in smoking.”

    As of June 21, the FDA had authorized more than 16,000 tobacco products—mostly cigarettes and cigars, according to Stroud. “Twenty-seven MGOs for ENDS is a depressing number and makes up less than 1 percent of authorized products,” she says. “Worse, only 49 products have been authorized by FDA using the PMTA pathway. FDA’s own budget is problematic; it’s entirely funded by user fees paid for by only six classes of tobacco products and not from e-cigarettes. There is more of an incentive to authorize the products that are paying for a $275,000 annual salary, as made by the CTP director in 2023, than authorizing products that pay nothing. While FDA has been asking Congress for years to be able to collect user fees on products including e-cigarettes, they refuse to issue orders—and instead denied tens of millions of products. That could have been a lot of fees and would have funded a significant amount of surveillance while also recognizing tobacco harm reduction. It is something the agency must recognize if the mission is to reduce smoking.”

    While optimists may detect a new willingness to approve reduced-risk products in the CTP’s recent product authorizations, few expect the regulatory floodgates to open to an avalanche of product approvals. | Photo: Tada Images

    Significant Ruling

    Smith says it is important to educate those affected by the failing 99.999 percent of all PMTA applications about the recent changes in the regulatory landscape and how those changes may lay a foundation for the significant changes necessary at the CTP.

    “The first is the recent announcement by the Supreme Court where the Chevron Deference has been overturned,” he says. “This action by the court will now require that regulatory agencies follow the letter of the law and that the regulators would now have little leeway in the interpretation of how to apply regulatory law.

    “The Chevron Deference has allowed the CTP to define the meaning of ‘appropriate for the protection of public health’ when conducting a review of the PMTAs and MRTPAs [modified-risk tobacco product applications]. Now, post-Chevron, if the Tobacco Control Act does not clearly outline the actions and process of enforcement of regulatory oversight in a manner that allows for the regulatory agency to action the law, the law will have to be amended to clarify the process, so legislators will have to work to make the law actionable … not the regulators that monitor the marketplace.”

    Second, according to Smith, the Supreme Court may review four relevant lawsuits—Triton, Magellan, Lotus and Logic. Such a review may trigger action to change the TCA. “If the court decides to hear at least one of these cases, then the likely outcome is a requirement that the TCA be clarified so that the CTP will only enforce actions defined in the TCA,” says Smith. “If the TCA isn’t clear as to how to enforce it, then the law should be amended. Depending on how the policies are modified by the legislative branch, we may see shifts in the way that CTP reviews all tobacco and nicotine products, leading to a more effective regulatory environment. However, how the legislators refine the TCA will determine if the regulatory environment improves in a manner that supports the reduced-risk product marketplace.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Hot Commodity

    Hot Commodity

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Leaf tobacco remains in short supply.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    Ivan Genov | Photo: ITGA

    Tobacco remains a scarce commodity. Universal Leaf estimates world leaf production, excluding China, at 4.66 billion green kg in 2023, down from 4.86 billion kg in 2022. This year, the merchant expects global production to rise to 5.2 billion kg, but there are issues that might alter this forecast.

    “The undersupply of leaf tobacco remains the key global trend,” says Ivan Genov, manager of tobacco industry analysis at the International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA). “Leading tobacco purchasing companies continue to report very low levels of uncommitted stock. In general, sales go very fast. In Brazil, the flue-cured Virginia (FCV) crop was almost completely sold by the end of April, which is unusual (see “The Great Scramble,” Tobacco Reporter, May 2024). In Zimbabwe, export figures from early May are up significantly from last year. Burley is also in short supply.

    “The market in Malawi, one of the key countries for the variety, opened on April 15. In the U.S., our members see strong short-term opportunities in burley. They also believe that the supply shortage will recover, but more slowly than in the past, which also means that prices should improve to meet these market shortages.”

    At least the rapid rise in production cost that has been plaguing growers in recent years appears to be leveling off in some origins. While costs remain a concern, Genov has seen positive developments in key markets. “For example, in Brazil, where cost of production for FCV and burley was going upward of 30 percent year-on-year, for the current crop that is nearly fully realized on the market, the increase is limited to single digits,” he observes. “This goes in line with global inflationary and commodity price dynamics, where it seems we are now past the highest points. This being said, the pressure on growers remains. Even though such drastic increases are tamed, the new price levels remain at the higher end.”

    At the same time, tobacco prices in most of the leading markets have gone up in 2023–2024. “Growers are positive about this dynamic, but their margins remain thin,” says Genov. “Additional efforts need to be made to increase these margins. ITGA is currently undertaking a big research effort in collecting information from influential tobacco-growing regions in finding the so-called game changers that could increase farmer productivity and improve the long-term prospects of growers.”

    More than two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, other factors worrying farmers in 2023 have also eased, according to Genov. “In the early stages of the conflict, there was a real uncertainty related to agrifood commodities, especially in Africa,” he says. “The continent has a big exposure to some essential products coming from Russia and Ukraine. However, our associations in Africa have recently reported that fertilizer supply has immensely improved, and pricing has stabilized, with some reduction. Navigating complicated geopolitical pressures in the future will likely keep the situation vulnerable.”

    China Boosts Production

    Chinese tobacco production is believed to be approaching 2 billion kg. | Photo: Jingmei Zhang

    Global FCV production, excluding China, rose to an estimated 1.92 billion kg in 2023, up from 1.64 billion kg in 2022, according to Universal Leaf’s data. For 2024, the company expects a slight drop to an estimated 1.88 billion kg.

    The world’s burley production stood at an estimated 443 million kg in 2023, up from 354 million kg one year previously. Production is anticipated to increase to an estimated 447 million kg in 2024.

    Oriental production declined to 109 million kg in 2023 from 116 million kg in 2022. The volume is expected to decrease even further to 104 million kg this year.

    Dark air-cured production rose from 115 million kg in 2022 to an estimated 119 kg in 2023. However, Universal expects production to fall to 109 million kg in 2024.

    With an FCV production of 1.97 billion kg in 2023, rising to an estimated 1,971 kg in 2024, according to the ITGA, China remains the leading tobacco-cultivating country by far. In addition to its huge FCV production, the country in 2023 grew 9 million kg of burley, anticipated to increase to 10 million tons this year.

    “China is a very restrictive market,” says Genov. “Nevertheless, available data shows that production is growing—approaching 2,000 million kg. In FCV, this represents approximately half of the global market. What is more interesting is that after Covid-19, China is continuously growing tobacco imports. In 2023, the country imported over 180 million kg of tobacco. China also resumed buying U.S. FCV, which has an impact on local growers. Chinese demand is likely to remain strong based on local consumption patterns.”

    The U.S.-China trade war heavily impacted the flue-cured tobacco leaf trade. In 2019 and 2020, China imported 100,000 kg and 0 kg of FCV, respectively, from the U.S., according to TMA’s Tobacco Trade Barometer. From 2021, imports began to rise back to pre-trade war levels. By 2023, Chinese FCV imports from the U.S. reached almost 25 million kg.

    Adverse Weather

    In the most recent season, key leaf-growing markets fared very differently in terms of leaf volume, quality and prices. Brazil’s 2023–2024 crop will be at least 14 percent smaller than the country’s previous harvest, Genov points out. “The initial estimate of Afubra, the Brazilian tobacco growers’ association, was for approximately 522 million kg—475 million kg of FCV and 39 million kg of burley,” he says. “All tobacco-growing areas in South Brazil were severely affected by adverse weather conditions. So, the final quantities produced are likely to be even lower—around 460 [million kg] to 470 million kg of FCV and 35 million kg of burley.”

    Brazil’s reduced volumes were a result of excessive rains, induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon, during the growing season. Adverse climate conditions are likely to impact next year’s harvest as well. In late April and early May, Brazil’s principal tobacco-growing state, Rio Grande do Sul, suffered its worst flooding in 80 years, temporarily bringing tobacco operations to a halt and causing some farmers to lose seedlings.

    Zimbabwe, by contrast, suffered from El Nino-induced drought. “As a result, a state of disaster was declared in early April,” says Genov. “Last year’s record FCV production volume of 297 million kg is unlikely to be matched, with a level of around 250 million kg much more likely. Last year’s record crop was also marked by a reduction in the average price for tobacco, particularly bad news for small-scale growers that are faced with issues, including a high level of indebtedness. This year, pricing is better—showing a double-digit increase compared to last year.”

    In the U.S., the season was stable, observes Genov. According to the ITGA, the country produced 142.9 million kg of FCV, 29.3 million kg of burley, 16.1 million kg of fire-cured and 5.5 million kg of dark air-cured tobacco as well as 2.3 million kg of cigar filler in 2023. “Market conditions will continue to weaken for dark-fired tobacco due to the growing pouch market,” predicts Genov. “Stronger short-term opportunities exist for burley. Separately, U.S. growers expect to be positioned well to benefit from company ESG activities as their tobacco is regarded as very high quality and does not suffer from sustainability-related issues present in other markets. However, alternative crops are offering greater opportunities for growers, and the continuation of tobacco farming is a real issue.”

    African Upswing

    Malawi, the world’s leading producer of burley, sold 120.5 million kg of leaf tobacco in 2023 against 85 million in the previous year. | Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Malawi, the world’s leading producer of burley, sold 120.5 million kg of leaf tobacco in 2023 against 85 million in the previous year. Burley accounted for 103 million kg of this figure. “Average pricing was up to $2.35 per kilogram compared to $2.14 per kilogram in the year before,” says Genov. “Big global demand for burley against a short supply in recent years pushed up demand and therefore competition on the market. Entry of two more buying companies further increased the competition. The recently started 2024 season so far offers better prices to growers. Ten days after the start of sales, average burley prices exceed $2.60 per kilogram.”

    A remarkable jump in leaf production took place in Tanzania, where yield was increased from around 60 million kg in 2022 to 122 million kg in 2023. As of December 2022, Tanzania had earned $316 million from tobacco exports. According to local press reports, the country aims to sell $400 million this season. Tanzania’s recent production figures make it Africa’s second-largest producer after Zimbabwe and ahead of Malawi, Mozambique (65.8 million kg), Zambia (44 million kg; also see “Brand Zambia,” page 30) and Uganda (13 million kg).

    “The importance of Tanzania in the global leaf market is growing significantly,” Genov explains. “The country’s minister of agriculture, Husein Bashe, recently noted that for the 2024–2025 season, they are optimistic to reach 200 million kg against the target of 300 million kg by 2025–2026. He targets the No. 1 producer place in Africa, so Tanzania’s ambitions are now well known.”

    And it’s not just leaf traders who are keeping an eye on Tanzania. In February 2024, Philip Morris International announced that it would build a cigarette factory in Morogoro and buy at least 12 million kg of Tanzanian tobacco annually over the next five years. The company has not purchased leaf from Tanzania since 2017. Operations are expected to commence toward the end of this year.

    Genov emphasizes significance of growers to the supply chain and industry. “Often neglected, their role remains absolutely pivotal,” he says. “ITGA is working hard to defend the legitimate interests of tobacco growers, and we are actively supporting them to ensure the long-term survival of rural communities around the world.”

    One example of ITGA’s efforts was to prepare its members for the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (see “Diluted Diligence,” Tobacco Reporter, June 2024), which was adopted by the European Parliament on April 24. “The directive will require the whole tobacco supply chain to address human rights and environmental concerns,” says Genov. “We conducted a survey among participants in our last year’s annual meeting focusing on the directive. A lot of them were worried about the necessary transformation that would lead to more pressure on them. Nevertheless, half of the participants have already taken proactive measures in preparation for it while only a quarter have not, showing that more adjustments will have to be made. Undoubtedly, making the entire process more transparent will have positive effects.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • A Broader Approach

    A Broader Approach

    According to experts, established tobacco control measures may be insufficient to achieve the desired reductions in smoking and the associated burden on healthcare systems. | Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    To lower the health and economic burden of smoking, lawmakers should incorporate tobacco harm reduction into their policies.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    The figures are staggering. Smoking cost the world economy an estimated $1.85 trillion, or about 1.8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), in 2012, according to a monograph published by the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute in 2016.

    The authors distinguish between direct and indirect costs. Direct costs, which include both healthcare expenses, such as physician fees or medical supplies, and nonhealthcare costs, such as transportation, were approximately $467.3 billion, representing 6.5 percent of global health expenditures, or 0.5 percent of global GDP. Indirect costs, which include the value of productivity and lives lost due to tobacco-related diseases, were an estimated $446.3 billion for disability and $938.6 billion for mortality.

    Low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for almost 40 percent of the expenses incurred globally due to tobacco use, with direct costs representing up to 4 percent of total health spending in these countries. The total economic costs of smoking in LMICs ranged from 1.1 percent to 1.7 percent of GDP in the countries investigated in the report compared with an estimated 2.4 percent in the Americas and 2.5 percent in Europe.

    Some of the data in the monograph dates back to the late 1990s, and it is likely that costs have increased since its publication. While some research released since the publication of the paper suggested that reductions in smoking prevalence would translate into lower healthcare costs quite quickly, these papers focused primarily on the healthcare systems of large, wealthy and technologically advanced societies rather than LMICs, where 80 percent of the world’s smokers live.

    People in LMICs are significantly more likely to die from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which include cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes, along with mental and neurological conditions. According to the WHO’s website, NCDs account for the deaths of 16 million people prematurely, i.e., before their 70th birthday, worldwide each year.

    Tobacco use represents the leading risk factor for NCDs, ahead of other risk factors such as air pollution, excess sodium intake, alcohol abuse or sedentary lifestyles. According to WHO data, tobacco currently accounts for 8.2 million deaths per year, including the effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, a figure that is projected to increase over the coming years.

    However, the WHO is far from achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of reducing premature deaths from NCDs by one-third by 2030. Depending on the source (and even the WHO’s numbers are inconsistent here), there are currently between 1.1 billion and 1.3 billion smokers in the world, and the figure is likely to rise, due in part to population growth.

    One of the major weaknesses of prevention is that the benefits take a long time to materialize.

    Focus on Prevention

    “When governments and government agencies lie about the health costs of vaping relative to smoking, they are betraying the trust of the public.”

    According to critics, the WHO’s established tobacco control measures are insufficient to achieve the desired reductions in smoking and the associated burden on healthcare systems. To accelerate progress, policymakers need to fundamentally change their approach, argues Andrzej M. Fal, president of the Polish Society for Public Health, who spoke at the Warsaw Global Forum on Nicotine in June.

    “If we enforce policies that reduce the risk of smoking now, there will be a significant reduction in cancer in 15 [years] to 20 years,” Fal pointed out. Because chronic diseases account for 90 percent of premature deaths, he argued, investing in their prevention is more cost-effective than treatment. The WHO itself recommends prevention as a response to noncommunicable diseases. Fal cited calculations from the global health body showing that every dollar invested in smoking prevention saves $7.43 down the road.

    Based on such considerations, Fal urges authorities to place greater emphasis on prevention and tobacco harm reduction. In 2023, the Polish Parliament analysis office asked Fal to prepare an analysis of the state of the tobacco “epidemic” in Poland. Fal and his co-authors concluded that the country lost 250,000 years of life as a result of tobacco consumption.

    Education about health, Fal suggested, should begin in kindergarten. People who are already ill and refuse to quit smoking should be incentivized to minimalize their risk using less hazardous nicotine-delivery alternatives. “If someone is already seriously ill,” Fal explained, “they can still achieve a better quality of life, live longer, and cost the system less,” he said.

    Fal proposed that each country launch at least one prevention clinic, which should be accessible without referral and would offer access to anti-smoking therapy, nicotine-replacement pharmacotherapy and harm reduction products. The clinics should also be responsible for regional health prevention programs and smoking information campaigns.

    Governments, he suggested, should set tobacco tax rates based on the relative harm of each product category, following the principle of “less harm, less tax.” Taxes on cigarettes—the most harmful tools for tobacco consumption—should rise “radically but progressively,” said Fal, who also called for publicly funded and supervised studies assessing the efficacy, safety and harm reduction in cases where the existing evidence was insufficient.

    One of the major weaknesses of prevention, however, is that the benefits take a long time to materialize. In a U.S. study analyzing the relationship between cigarette sales and lung cancer deaths, for example, it took 20 years for the first measures taken to curb tobacco consumption to show up in lower lung cancer death statistics. That time frame is too long for many lawmakers. “Politicians are not interested in investing in prevention as its benefits are seen long after they have left the government,” said Fal.

    Progress is also obstructed by conflicts of interest. In 2018, he noted, Poland’s tobacco-related health expenditures plus productivity loss were between PLN7 billion ($1.71 billion) and PLZ8 billion in 2018, whereas excise and VAT income from cigarettes amounted to PLN23.5 billion.

    Every dollar invested in smoking prevention saves $7.43 down the road.

    Myopic MPs

    Sinclair Davidson

    All too often, politicians are uninterested in considering the potential unintended consequences of their decisions. For example, Australia’s rules requiring vapers to get a medical prescription and banning imports of disposable e-cigarettes have caused the illicit market to flourish. Ninety-two percent of Australian vapers currently source their vapes from the black market, exposing them to unrelated products. More than 70 tobacco shops have gone up in flames since Health Minister Mark Butler started his crackdown on vapes. Police suspect some of the attacks are carried out by criminal groups as retaliations against store owners who refuse to stock their black market products.

    “Australia tends to pursue harm minimization policies in most areas—except in tobacco and nicotine consumption,” said Sinclair Davidson, professor of institutional economics at RMIT University, Melbourne. “Here, Australia pursues the most socially harmful policies that the so-called public health lobby can dream up. The costs this policy’s short-sightedness imposes on the economy are likely to be large but hidden or indirect. For example, when cigarettes are stolen from convenience stores, this results in insurance costs being increased on those stores and prices being increased for all consumers.

    “Similarly, when criminal profits are increased, criminal behavior in the economy increases. When criminal behavior increases, police budgets increase, resulting in higher taxes for all citizens and higher levels of criminal behavior. We are all victims of crime and criminal behavior—except, of course, the public health lobby, who have built careers off their policy work, and politicians and law enforcement agencies who get expanded budgets and powers as a result of poor policy. It is a vicious cycle of ‘Baptists and bootleggers’ who benefit while the rest of society suffers.”

    Meanwhile, the decline in tobacco tax revenue even as smoking rates have stabilized suggests that people are still smoking—they’re just not smoking legal cigarettes. “The challenges are twofold,” said Davidson. “Government itself has become addicted to tobacco excise revenue, and that source of revenue has become unreliable. The subsidy from smokers to the rest of the population has been captured by criminals. Criminality imposes huge costs on society. This occurs through the normalization of violence and the misallocation of resources from legal activity to illegal activity. Furthermore, criminality has a corrupting influence on law enforcement activities. Poor policy corrodes civil society by undermining public trust in public institutions. When governments and government agencies lie about the health costs of vaping relative to smoking, they are betraying the trust of the public and undermining their moral worth in society.”

    By contrast, Sweden’s success in reducing smoking rates by accommodating snus is a public health success story, according to Davidson. Since 2008, Sweden has slashed its smoking rates from 15 percent to 5.6 percent, according to Smoke Free Sweden. The nation’s smoking prevalence is expected to dip below 5 percent this year, making it the first country to achieve “smoke-free” status as defined by the WHO.

    Sweden’s incidence of cancer is 41 percent lower than in the rest of the EU, corresponding to a 38 percent lower level of total cancer deaths. The country has a 39.6 percent lower rate of death of all tobacco-related diseases compared to the EU average. “I don’t know to what extent Australian consumers are familiar with snus and what the uptake would be—but the principle remains. Low(er) risk products on the market result in consumers substituting away from the high(er) risk products,” said Davidson.

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • A Clean Sweep

    A Clean Sweep

    Holger Twrdy

    At Cerdia’s much-anticipated 12th filter colloquium, speakers detailed the progress in reducing the industry’s carbon footprint.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    “On the road toward a sustainable future” was the theme of Cerdia’s 12th filter colloquium, which took place in Freiburg, Germany, June 3–5. The conference has a rich tradition. Except for the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the acetate tow manufacturer’s event has taken place every three years since the mid-1980s. This year, speakers from all parts of the tobacco industry supply chain shared their strategies to reduce their carbon footprint.

    Sustainability has always been important to Cerdia, which was created after the Blackstone Group purchased Rhodia’s acetate tow business in 2016. However, as Cerdia CEO Jens Ebinghaus explained in his opening speech, the topic gained even greater prominence after the acquisition and the company’s subsequent rebranding.

    Cerdia employs approximately 1,100 people worldwide and has revenues of around $750 million. In addition to its Freiburg facility, it operates factories in Santo Andre, Brazil; Serpukhov, Russia; and Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. While investing in core filter tow technology and diversifying into new business segments, the company focuses heavily on ESG, which encompasses energy diversity and efficiency as well as safety, compliance and governance, and community engagement.

    In 2023, Cerdia allocated 45 percent of its capital expenditure to projects supporting sustainability. According to Ebinghaus, the business environment for tow manufacturers has become significantly more volatile since 2019. The rising costs of raw materials, for example, has forced manufacturers to increase efficiencies. At times and often regionally, the industry also suffered from issues relating to transportation, disrupting supply chains. In addition, the geopolitical situation has become more challenging, with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East erecting new hurdles for business, for example. At the same time, business opportunities have emerged from next-generation products such as heated-tobacco products (HTPs), sales of which have been growing rapidly in recent years.

    Maria Viloria

    Lots of Levers

    Part of Cerdia’s roadmap to sustainability was a “double materiality” assessment, carried out in 2022, according to Maria Viloria, Cerdia’s head of sustainability and R&D. Through a survey, the company learned what was most important to its customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Based on these findings, it created a “significance map” that put Cerdia’s ESG priorities in perspective. The company then developed a set of sustainability objectives that are in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development goals and established a sustainability committee to support its strategy.

    By 2030, Cerdia aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent, its landfill waste to zero and its water withdrawal by 10 percent compared to 2019. Medium and major injuries are to be reduced to zero and complaints to under 0.5 per delivered kiloton. The company has been sourcing its wood pulp from 100 percent certified sustainable forestry for years.

    By 2030, Cerdia aims to have trained 95 percent of its employees in compliance and to have fully implemented the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). In autumn 2024, Cerdia will move its Basel headquarters to a new, carbon dioxide (CO2)-neutral building. The company, which in 2021 received a silver medal from the business sustainability rating provider Ecovadis, is now aiming for gold.

    Cerdia’s new biosteam project, which is planned to come online in the first quarter of 2025, will play a vital role in the company’s CO2 reduction strategy by using biomass for steam production, according to Holger Twrdy, Cerdia’s vice president, manufacturing. The power plant will reduce the Freiburg factory’s CO2 emissions by 15 percent to 20 percent, or 26,000 tons annually, and Cerdia’s overall CO2 emissions by 10 percent.

    Further CO2 reduction of around 1,500 tons per year will come from a new absorption column in the Freiburg plant’s acetone absorption division, which will also start production early next year. In addition, the company will expand an existing CO2-free residential heating project, supplying green energy to Freiburg’s Dietenbach district.

    Esther Abe

    HTPs on the Rise

    Esther Abe, Cerdia’s market intelligence manager, provided an overview of the global tobacco market during the colloquium. After years of decline, cigarette sales stabilized in 2020, and Abe expects them to grow slightly, with increases in HTP and super-slim cigarette sales offsetting declines in other categories.

    She expected the global cigarette market to reach 5.55 trillion sticks in 2024 and anticipates it to increase to 5.7 trillion units by 2030. According to Abe, China’s cigarette market is likely to increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.3 percent by 2030 due to the rising popularity of super slims and restrictions on vape products while HTPs are the fastest-growing segment in the rest of the world.

    Abe expects sales of combustible cigarettes to remain stable in China but to decline in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Americas and Europe. The main sources of volume growth will likely be Africa and the Middle East, she said.

    The HTP category is envisaged to grow by a CAGR of 17 percent, to reach approximately 526 billion sticks in 2030. While Cerdia will remain focused on filter tow for the tobacco industry, which accounts for 85 percent of its business, it is also exploring other lines of business. To that end, the company recently established a new business development (NBD) team, which is exploring complementary acetate tow applications.

    According to NBD head Josef Hudina, the product is meltable in various recipes, soluble in many eco-friendly solvents and hydrophobic enough to be suitable as a plastic substitute. Moreover, it can be processed in the form of fibers, films, granules or powders. With its new cellulose acetate compounds, CellspherA Micro and CellspherA Granules, Cerdia offers an alternative to fossil materials that are widely used in the personal care industry. As the EU microplastic restriction boosts the demand for natural alternatives, Hudina is convinced that cellulose acetate could pass the EU microplastic exemption.

    Speakers at the colloquium anticipated tobacco industry regulations to increase further.

    Cerdia Product Stewardship Manager Emmerich Sackers detailed the scope and requirements of the European Deforestation Regulation, which entered into force in 2023 and will apply to large businesses from the end of this year.

    Jan Muecke, managing director of the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products, pointed out that the recent decision at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to focus on the environmental concerns described in FCTC Article 18 will likely influence how the EU Tobacco Products Directive, the U.N. International Plastic Treaty and the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive end up dealing with cigarette filters.

    Further legislative initiatives are underway under the European Green Deal, including the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the CSRD, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the EU Batteries Regulation and the Green Claims Directive.

    Jens Ebinghaus

    Comprehensive Approach Required

    Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the road to sustainability is a puzzle with many pieces, all of which are vital. Logistics, for instance, account for 11 percent to 12 percent of total CO2 emissions, as Sergio Barbarino, chairperson of the Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe (ALICE), explained.

    The EU aims to decarbonize its transportation sector by 2050. ALICE has identified five pillars for the future of logistics: In addition to energy-efficient fleets and assets that use the lowest possible emissions energy source available, which presently is at the center of efforts, the focus in the mid-term should be on the management of demand, smart use of transport modes and sharing of fleets and assets.

    Procurement is another factor. Benjamin Saur, global category manager of sustainability at BAT, shared that 42 percent of his company’s greenhouse gas emissions are under the procurement department’s remit. BAT has designed a Supplier Climate Enablement Program that segments the approach to neither overburden suppliers’ own organizations nor BAT.

    In manufacturing, the biggest lever for increasing sustainability lies in increasing machine and process efficiency, according to Klaus Masuch, head of strategic product management secondary at Koerber Technologies. Options for actions, he said, are machinery-driven, people-driven and service-driven improvements along with data-driven and software-driven improvements, with a focus on tobacco savings and emphasis on the development of eco-friendly alternatives, such as biodegradable filters.

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • Bearing Fruit

    Bearing Fruit

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Alliance One’s seed breeders in Brazil are boosting crop quality and yields while improving disease resistance and tolerance for extreme weather conditions.

    By Taco Tuinstra

    Small may be beautiful, but in some cases, bigger is better. Take tobacco seeds, which range between 0.5 mm and 1 mm in diameter. A single gram of the material can contain a whopping 10,000 seeds.

    While that may seem efficient, seeds of that size are also difficult to handle. That’s why Alliance One International (AOI) has installed a pelleting machine at its Global Research, Development and Deployment Center in Passo do Sobrado, Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil. In a process similar to that used by pharmaceutical companies in pill production, the device coats tobacco seeds with a mix of inert materials, including clay (drug companies use gelatin), to beef them up to more manageable dimensions. The seeds that exit the machine are up to 50 times bigger than the ones that go in, allowing the grower to plant them accurately.

    The seed pelleting machine is only one of many investments at the center’s seed industrialization unit, which was inaugurated in January of this year. The facility also houses equipment that performs functions such threshing, grading, upgrading, drying and finishing—capabilities that help improve germination, stimulate healthy, consistent crop development and increase yield. The unit, which sits on an 82 ha farm housing greenhouses, laboratories and other key infrastructure, has an annual tobacco processing capacity of nearly 2 metric tons and the ability to pelletize more than 200,0000 cans of seed for sale each year.

    In addition to commissioning new equipment, the unit has been expanding its skills base, hiring agronomists, biologists and agricultural engineers, among other professionals. During the Brazilian crop’s peak period, the center employs approximately 100 people.

    The investments are part of AOI’s endeavor to strengthen its global function using existing capabilities. AOI has been a major supplier in Brazil’s tobacco seed market for years, selling not only to its contracted farmers but also to other leaf merchants. Roughly 40 percent of Brazil’s tobacco volume, or more than 100,000 hectares, are produced with AOI seeds, according to the company.

    Keen to share the “fruits” of the labor in Passo do Sobrado with its other origins, the seed industrialization unit now also services AOI operations outside Brazil. “Basically, we transformed a local research center into a global research center,” says Helio Moura, AOI’s vice president of global crop science and value chain. Already supplying AOI in Guatemala, Argentina, Turkiye and Thailand, the center is currently in the process of entering additional markets.

    According to Moura, the new unit provides the company with greater quality control and makes it possible for all activities to be governed by the company’s internal integrated quality management system. “Improved quality control opens doors to selling our seed in new markets at a faster speed, increases customer and farmer satisfaction, and drives efficiencies within our business,” he says.

    Those are important benefits because seed breeding is a finicky, labor-intensive and time-consuming business. For example, plants must be pollinated flower by flower—a delicate process that doesn’t lend itself to mechanization. Getting the necessary approvals and certifications requires time too. When you add up all the steps, creating a new variety can take up to 10 years.

    Moura likens the process to a funnel. “You have thousands of breeding lines, then we start selecting and narrowing it down until we are able to launch a better variety than we currently have,” he says, adding that there is always room for improvement. “The latest variety is not perfect, just superior to the previous one,” he observes.

    A single gram of material can contain a whopping 10,000 tobacco seeds. | Photos: Taco Tuinstra

    The seed industrialization unit breeds for characteristics such as quality, yields, disease resistance and tolerance for extreme weather conditions, an attribute that has become increasingly important in recent years, as was tragically demonstrated in early May when Santa Cruz do Sul suffered the worst flash floods in living memory.

    To ensure the required variation, the seed industrialization center houses a germplasm bank with thousands of “mothers” and “fathers” for burley, flue-cured and dark tobaccos, along with oriental styles. “We have access to more than 3,000 different tobacco varieties to cross and create new, unique strains,” says Moura. The resulting hybrids don’t produce seeds, which means they are impossible to replicate and thus guarantee return business for AOI. At least once every three years, seed samples in the germplasm bank are tested to make sure that they are germinating. That way, the company knows they will be available when it needs them.

    With the help of DNA markers, AOI’s scientists identify the desirable qualities. Advancements in biotechnology have made the work quicker, easier and more accurate. “Thirty years ago, there were only a few tools for making selections; nowadays, instead of looking for the phenotypes in the fields, we can look inside the plant and see the genes,” marvels plant breeding supervisor Elaine Batista. What’s more, the cost of equipment has decreased significantly, allowing biologists to make selections quicker, more accurately and with less effort.

    To ensure that the results of its research and development are rolled out correctly, AOI works closely with its contracted farmers. A new variety may deliver superior yields under controlled conditions, but if it’s improperly deployed in the field, the grower will not enjoy the full benefit. “So we spend much time training our growers on the correct way to work with the seeds,” says Moura.

    Aware of the importance of capturing and retaining knowledge within their organization, the scientists meticulously document their work. “For every project, we create a business case and a project brief. If someone asks about it 10 years from now, we can save time and money,” says Moura, who at previous employers faced many situations in which colleagues inquired about a past project only to be told that the results were no longer available, forcing the company to reinvent the wheel. And while it may be tempting to document only the projects that worked, the seed industrialization unit insists on documenting both its successes and failures. “We don’t have the time or money to spend on things that don’t add value,” says Moura.

    Even as demand for cigarettes stagnates and some nicotine users are switching to tobacco-free products, the work carried out at the seed industrialization unit is likely to remain relevant far into the future. As a respected flavorist pointed out during a recent Coresta meeting, consumers are able to tell the difference between nicotine created in a laboratory and nicotine derived from natural tobacco leaf. The depth of expertise and the sheer variety of genetic material housed in Passo do Sobrado will enable the unit to continue developing varieties that not only improve farmers’ operations but also meet and exceed consumers’ expectations for many years to come.

    Taco Tuinstra is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial director.Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, he coordinates the work of staff writers and contributors.On his watch, Tobacco Reporter has won several awards for editorial excellence.Since joining the magazine in 1997, Taco has visited more than 75 countries to meet industry representatives in their markets and to report tobacco news firsthand.
  • Brand ‘Zambia’

    Brand ‘Zambia’

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Operating in the shadow of its tobacco powerhouse neighbor, Zimbabwe, Zambia is trying to make a name for itself on the global market.

    By George Gay

    When researching leaf tobacco production in Zambia, it is almost de rigueur to seek an answer to the question of why the country grows a Virginia flue-cured crop only about one-eighth the size of that produced by its neighbor Zimbabwe. After all, Zimbabwe has a land mass only about 50 percent of that of Zambia, and the populations of the two countries are comparable.

    One of the answers normally given to this question is that tobacco has been prioritized in Zimbabwe because it is a hugely important contributor to the country’s GDP and foreign exchange earnings whereas it has been less important in Zambia, where mining plays a dominant role. Of course, this explanation seems to beg the question since both countries are rich in minerals and both have soils and climates ideal for growing tobacco, but that doesn’t mean the explanation is wrong. Presumably, sometime in the past, those who took control of the region of Africa now made up of Zambia and Zimbabwe decided, for whatever reasons, on where they should prioritize mining and agriculture, and those priorities remain in force today because change, even if desirable, is sometimes impossible or at least difficult to bring about.

    Decades ago, a tobacco grower of my acquaintance told me that Zambia struggled to attract international tobacco buyers who, after spending months in Zimbabwe each year, were reluctant to move on to Zambia to buy what was then a small crop, and without the prospect of a significant number of buyers showing up, there was no viable way of increasing the size of the crop and attracting more buyers …. If it wasn’t a catch-22 situation, it was close to it.

    Zambia produces about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of burley annually.

    Limits to Production

    Albert van Wyk

    Ironically, when significant change did come about in Zambia, it came in the form of a boost from Zimbabwe. Zambia’s current level of tobacco production can be traced back to the 2002–2003 season and the arrival of Zimbabwean growers whose land had been taken from them under compulsory acquisition policies brought in from 2000 under former President Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution policies. From that point on, apart from a hiccup that occurred about 10 years ago, production increased steadily.

    And contrary to the impression that might have been given above, tobacco comprises an important business in Zambia, which produces flavorful flue-cured and burley between September and April in its southern, eastern and central provinces, about 70 percent of it rain-fed and 30 percent under irrigation. It is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities. Tobacco is produced by about 24,000 growers, and about 270,000 people depend on its production for their livelihoods. Most of its leaf is processed locally by Tombwe Processing and exported, mainly to China and Japan, for use in cigarette manufacture, earning much-needed foreign exchange.

    But having made the case for the importance of tobacco, it must be said that unless something unexpected occurs, it is unlikely that Zambia will in the future significantly increase the size of its tobacco crops from their current annual levels of about 30 million kg of flue-cured and 8 million kg of Burley. And here, at least, the reasons are not difficult to discern.

    Albert van Wyk, a Zambian tobacco grower for 40 years and the general manager of the Tobacco Association of Zambia (TAZ), told me during a telephone conversation in April that “compliance,” specifically its environmental aspects, limited the amount by which the tobacco crop could be expanded. To comply with buyer and manufacturer requirements, it was necessary for growers to maintain sustainable woodlots to produce the fuel they needed for curing, and these currently could only just keep abreast of current production; they could not be expanded easily and quickly to allow for a major increase in production. The only other option would be to move to using coal for curing additional flue-cured, but coal, which is produced in Zambia, raises its own environmental concerns, is relatively expensive, and its use might be phased out soon.

    The TAZ clearly takes seriously issues of compliance, which go far beyond the maintenance of woodlots, and van Wyk told me that the industry, which is fully private, liked to think of itself as self-regulating within the laws of the land. Currently, it was trying to establish “Brand Zambia” in the market, something that would put it ahead of Malawi and Zimbabwe. In fact, not only is tobacco production self-regulating in Zambia, but it is also self-propagating. Perhaps reflecting the relatively lowly status of tobacco growing in the country, there is no facility to train growers, so it keeps going on an informal apprenticeship scheme whereby established growers teach and mentor younger growers, as well as farm hands, who need to be skilled.

    Tobacco cultivation is clearly important in rural areas and, also, less obviously, in urban areas, in part because it helps to reduce population drift to the cities.

    Compliance

    So far, in talking about why it is unlikely that production will increase significantly in Zambia, I have ignored the elephants in the room—grower tobacco prices, efficiencies and profitability, which these days are connected to “compliance” because compliance, in all its guises, doesn’t come cheaply. Generally, prices on Zambia’s tobacco market, which runs from April to August and which are based on contracts, are not at a level to inspire major production increases.

    Having said that, this year’s crops are of good quality and are short in a year when all the major flue-cured and burley producer countries have come up with smaller-than-expected quantities of these types, so prices are likely to be better. In fact, van Wyk, who was in the process of selling his tobacco when I spoke with him, said that Zambia’s growers were expecting increases of $0.40 per kilogram and hoping for $0.80 per kilogram. “In a year of a shortage, I think things have to shift,” he said. “If they aren’t going to shift now, when will they shift?”

    Nevertheless, van Wyk is nothing if not practical, and he acknowledges that even though prices might not be as high as growers would like them to be, tobacco is still a better value crop than others. Tobacco, he said, would pay a grower’s medical bills and school fees and on a community-wide basis allow the building of schools and other social facilities. And in this sense, he is politely dismissive of the representatives of nongovernmental organizations who show up from time to time promoting moves away from tobacco and into other crops and business activities. And it is not hard to see his point. Tobacco growers such as van Wyk didn’t come down with the last shower of rain; they have been around for a long time. During their careers, they, like the rest of us, will have been looking for ways to make more money by doing less. They will have been down these other avenues, so the fact that they are still in tobacco tells its own story.

    Sealed Systems

    Van Wyk is politely dismissive, too, of the sorts of generational smoking bans being debated in the U.K. and discussed elsewhere. He sees such bans as playing a part in shifting the tobacco business from what he calls the honest trade to the dishonest trade. Again, it is easy to see his point and, indeed, wonder whether the problem doesn’t run deeper than he suggested. Is this just a demand issue or a supply issue also? Is the line in the sand between the honest and the dishonest trade maintained even if noncompliant tobacco is available in a year such as this, when there is a shortage of the main cigarette tobacco types? Is there no crossover? It seems difficult to imagine that there are two sealed systems working alongside each other—one involving sustainably grown compliant tobacco sold through proper channels and used in licit manufacture and the other comprising noncompliant tobacco grown unsustainably, sold through opaque channels and winding up with illicit manufacturers.

    The reason why this question must be asked goes back to the fact that Zambian growers are hoping for good prices this year but are not sure of them. Why not? If the two closed systems described above were in operation, prices would be bound to rise in a year of shortage, especially since licit manufacturers do not keep stocks as big as once was the case. The fact that higher prices are not guaranteed seems to suggest that there is some crossover—that noncompliant tobacco enters the mainstream, something that would clearly put downward pressure on prices—as well as call into question the very idea of compliance, sustainability and traceability.

    Of course, the above comprises just hypothetical questions, but it is worth giving some thought to them because there is another reason why the trade in noncompliant leaf might be more invasive than otherwise imagined—the permeability of some borders. Recently, people in the U.K. and some other countries have had to consider more closely than in the past the legacies left behind by colonialism. As you would expect, the reactions to such reflections have varied, at least in the U.K., but only the willfully obdurate cling to the claim that there have been no negative outcomes. Some of these outcomes are now widely discussed, though, often, the underlying reasons for them are not: for instance, the “creation” of African nations by the drawing by non-Indigenous people of boundaries seemingly heedless of the historical understandings and sensitivities of the way in which Indigenous people ordered their lives. And, certainly, this seems to be the case with Zambia, which has borders with eight countries, including Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Given the circumstances under which these borders were decided upon, I would be reluctant to use the word “smuggling” when talking about some of the cross-border movement of leaf tobacco; perhaps “osmosis” would be a better word.

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.
  • Celebrating Diversity

    Celebrating Diversity

    Diversity and equal opportunities are an integral part of JTI’s business success.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    According to studies, diversity in the workplace can contribute to smarter decision-making, greater productivity and reduced rates of employee turnover, along with improved corporate reputations. In recent years, companies around the world have increasingly implemented diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs—a collection of practices and policies intended to support people from varying backgrounds and give them the resources they need to thrive in the workplace.

    More precisely, diversity is embracing the differences everyone brings to the table, whether it’s someone’s race, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability or other aspects of social identity. With different backgrounds come different perspectives, which ultimately lead to better ideas and solutions and better outcomes—or products, for that matter.

    To ensure equal circumstances for all individuals across the organization, employers must recognize that not everyone is starting at the same level. Rather than giving everybody the same tools, companies that strive for equity provide employees with what they individually need to have an equal opportunity for success.

    Inclusion means that while the workplace requires professionalism and etiquette, employees should not be barred from being themselves; they should not worry about “code-switching” or shielding part of their identity when going to work. Inclusion is what maintains diversity.

    Research conducted by McKinsey shows that in 2020, companies worldwide spent an estimated $7.5 billion on DEI-related efforts, a number that was projected to double by 2026. According to a LinkedIn analysis, the number of chief diversity and inclusion officer positions grew by 168.9 percent in the U.S. between 2019 and 2022. However, DEI programs have been under siege from some quarters recently, with U.S. state lawmakers launching efforts to restrict DEI efforts in public schools and universities and companies rolling back their efforts. DEI initiatives, opponents argue, are an overly political, damaging waste of time or a distraction from organizations’ primary activities.

    In fact, there has been little scientific research to evaluate the effects of DEI, which emerged at the time of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. A 2023 review by Boston University researchers found that successful programs were composed of trainings that were grounded in theory. Effective trainings were longitudinal instead of one-time and not only focused on defining concepts but also provided additional support, trainings and skills, such as how to navigate challenging conversations. In successful programs, DEI was not limited to diversity but also emphasized inclusion, meaning companies engaged individuals or groups who had been historically excluded from decision-making activities. This, in turn, drove equity.

    Culture of Inclusivity

    Fernando Bonaduce

    Geneva-headquartered Japan Tobacco International has had a comprehensive DEI program in place since 2018. “We foster an environment that embraces diversity, ensures equal opportunities and provides a safe space for everyone to contribute,” says Fernando Bonaduce, JTI’s DEI director. “This commitment is integral to our business success. I am proud that all JTI branches worldwide have adopted DEI principles. Our employees play a crucial role in this endeavor. Starting from the highest levels of the organization and extending through our global team, we are nurturing a culture of inclusivity. This gives everyone the freedom to choose, think, express themselves and be authentic.”

    In 2020, JTI launched its first employee resource group (ERG), PRIDE, for the LGBTIQ+ community. “Today, we have four ERGs with hundreds of change agents involved in key DEI areas such as gender equality, race and ethnic inclusion, gender identity and sexual orientations or diverse thinking,” says Bonaduce. Changes in corporate culture, he notes, require both time and effort and are “anything but an easy road.”

    In 2021, the company committed to increasing women in leadership roles to 30 percent by the end of 2023. “We achieved this ambition in August of that year, well ahead of schedule,” says Bonaduce. “Our commitment to gender equality reflects our efforts to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace, creating an environment where female colleagues are set up for success.”

    One year later, the company’s DEI division was merged with the human resources department, an initiative that has been guided by a DEI strategy focusing on four strategic pillars: strategic commitment, value diversity, building inclusion and nurturing employees’ well-being. “This strategic focus has influenced talent attraction, retention and promotion processes by ensuring all our decisions are geared toward bringing out the human best in our organization. For instance, embedding the DEI principles means that talent management needs to develop a diverse representation in leadership roles,” says Bonaduce.

    The company’s DEI-rooted approach, he says, implies that JTI constantly seeks to identify and remove barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from fully participating in the whole recruitment process. Initiatives to achieve this objective include encouraging and monitoring language to not exclude potential applicants based on their background and designing interviews and panels in a way to provide every candidate with the best chance for success. “This approach helps us remove biases from the selection process as best we can,” says Bonaduce.

    Work-Life Balance

    JTI uses channels and platforms that directly address underrepresented groups, like myGwork, to attract a more diverse applicant pool. The remarkable increase in the number of women in leadership roles, Bonaduce says, is a direct result of the company’s efforts, which aim to enhance the visibility of its top female talents and provide mentorship for them. “Every year, each member of JTI’s global executive committee, except for the CEO, sponsors a senior female talent from around the globe for a period of 12 months. This program aids our talented individuals in their career development, fostering an inclusive and diverse culture from the very top of our organization.”

    To help employees recognize and overcome unconscious biases and ensure managers become a catalyst for inclusion and nurture individuals as they are, the company offers various training programs.

    Mental health is also an important element in JTI’s DEI strategy. “Our employees dedicate a significant portion of their day to work-related activities,” says Bonaduce. “We know how important physical fitness is for our health and well-being. Unfortunately, people can still hesitate to openly seek psychological guidance or support with mental health due to uncertainty about others’ reactions or feelings of shame. At JTI, we are committed to helping people remove the stigma that still exists in some parts of society.”

    The company therefore offers its employees a mental fitness test so that they can check how balanced and healthy they are, live training sessions and a global employee assistance program that provides round-the-clock access to over 40,000 counselors, mental health trainers and specialists 365 days a year. “This service is free, confidential and professional, with assistance available in 200 different languages.” Additional mental health first-aid program modules promote peer-to-peer support on various mental health and personal well-being topics.

    Taking Pride in Being Different

    Rene Staebe

    PRIDE is a particular success story within the company’s DEI approach. “Having an LGBTIQ+ ERG like PRIDE at JTI is crucial for fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace,” says Rene Staebe, co-founder of PRIDE. “Such groups provide a safe space where individuals can express their true selves, share their experiences and find solidarity among peers. This sense of belonging not only boosts individual well-being and job satisfaction but also enhances overall company performance.” According to research, a third of LGBT+ people in the European Union hide their identity from co-workers, and even more have faced discrimination at work because of who they are.

    “Our initiatives focus on educating colleagues, promoting understanding and encouraging open dialogue,” says Staebe. He says he has witnessed remarkable and positive changes across the company since PRIDE’s creation, one of the most significant shifts being the noticeable increase in active allies. “Employees from all levels and departments have stepped up to show their support, especially at senior management level, who have been instrumental in setting a powerful example for others to follow whilst their endorsement has helped embed the values of PRIDE into the fabric of our corporate culture, making inclusivity a core component of our identity,” says Staebe. “We have seen a substantial increase in the number of internal webinars and educational sessions focused on LGBTIQ+ issues providing valuable platforms for sharing knowledge, raising awareness and fostering open dialogue. This has been aided by the implementation of more inclusive policies and practices to include more comprehensive nondiscrimination clauses and more inclusive healthcare and parental leave benefits.”

    Meanwhile, PRIDE has a global ERG footprint, with chapters in Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, the Philippines and 13 other countries. Staebe highlights that continuous support is being provided to employees in regions that are not friendly toward the queer community. PRIDE is exploring ways to empower local markets, such as the Middle East, by setting up resource groups while complying with local regulations.

     

    “We are always striving to create a confidential environment where LGBTIQ+ employees can feel safe and valued, which is why it’s so important to have a presence within countries where there are challenges for community members. For this to be possible, we are supported by JTI’s “embassy” model, which enables us to have a presence despite the challenges that people may face,” says Staebe.

    In 2023, the company was honored with the Swiss LGBT Label award for the second time. Its progress was also awarded with EY’s Global Equality Standard certification in 2021, in which JTI received several of the highest assessment scores for equal opportunities and equal pay in the workplace. The company has also been recognized as a Global Top Employer.

    For a DEI program to be successful, it is important to maintain constant dialogue with underrepresented groups, Bonaduce says. “Feedback from our employees confirms that management is becoming increasingly inclusive. Almost 90 percent of our global employees experience a full sense of belonging to the organization. We also observe our leadership bench becoming even more diverse, with talent from different genders and cultural backgrounds.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.