Category: Print Edition

The Challenge of Change
JTI repositions itself for a changing tobacco landscape.
By Stefanie Rossel
The year 2019 marked another milestone in the industry’s attempt to balance the familiar world of tobacco with that of next-generation products (NGPs). Between September and December, the world’s three leading tobacco manu- facturers announced comprehensive restructuring plans to make their operations fit for the new realities. Together, Japan Tobacco International (JTI), British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI) will cut more than 5,350 jobs around the globe.
JTI alone will lay off 3,720 employees, or more than 8 percent of its global workforce, over the next three years. The measure will also hit JTI’s Geneva headquarters where about a quarter of the company’s 1,100 employees will be let go. The company said that it would create 1,300 new positions by creating global business centers (GBS) in Warsaw, St. Petersburg and Manila. The centers will provide support and management services to the company in finance, marketing and sales, research and development, legal matters and the supply chain. With around 850 workplaces, most new jobs will be created in Warsaw.
According to Antoine Ernst, senior vice president and chief transformation officer at JTI, the benefits of the GBS will be enhanced service levels through specialization, increased speed of the service delivery to the business and harmonized processes with simpler interfaces and integration of systems. Those benefits will lead to efficiencies and will allow markets and corporate functions to further concentrate on consumer and customer needs.
The transformation will take up to three years to implement. “The world and our external operating environment change at a very fast pace,” says Ernst. “This creates tensions but also new needs and opportunities. Our business operations, structures, services and product offerings will continuously adapt. We must be fit and agile to take full advantage of the changes and transform these opportunities [into] superior growth realities. The main goal of the JTI transformation is to be more competitive. It will improve our operating standards while investing and developing leading skill sets, ways of working and commercial capabilities needed for our future success. This is a continuous improvement road map with a clear focus [on] giving more and better tools to differentiate the JTI portfolio and win the consumer battle.”
Need to adapt
“All businesses are under fairly constant pressure to change and improve,” comments consumer staples specialist Jon Fell, principal at Ash Park. “While this restructuring should produce important savings, it’s also about improving the speed and efficiency of the organization and bringing in new skills, particularly digital ones.”
This expertise will be essential for JTI: The company emerged in 1999 as the international arm from the privatization of the Japanese tobacco monopoly, which took place in 1985, and grew through mergers and acquisitions to become the world’s No. 3 tobacco company. In 2017 and 2018, the Japan Tobacco Group (JT Group) acquired five major tobacco companies for about $6 billion. Today, around 60 percent of the JT Group’s operating profits come from its international division.
JTI has a wide range of tobacco products and vapor products in its portfolio. In addition to global cigarette brands, such as Winston, Camel, Mevius and LD, JTI offers shisha products under its Nakhla brand, snus with its LD brand, rolling tobacco under brand names such as Amber Leaf and Old Holborn, and cigars including the Hamlet brand. The company recently launched Nordic Spirit, a nicotine pouch, in Scandinavia, the U.K. and Switzerland. The product does not contain tobacco and can thus be legally sold throughout the European Union, which bans regular snus in all member states bar Sweden.
In the vapor market, JTI is represented through its Logic range of e-cigarettes including Curv, Pro, LQD and, recently, Compact.
JTI says that it continues to innovate and expand in the vapor category. Between 2015 and 2020, the firm will have invested $2 billion in the category. The company also expanded a number of its R&D facilities and factories to include its range of reduced-risk products (RRPs). It also has a new digital division to manage its online marketing and sales platforms. In RRPs, JTI is present in 28 countries, which together account for almost all global sales of the category.
The company’s priorities in the coming years are to pursue ambitious growth, to raise the bar in RRPs and to prioritize its investments through innovation, organic growth and acquisitions both in conventional tobacco products and RRPs.
While its international business has done comparatively well, the company’s domestic market has declined in recent years. With a share of 61.8 percent in 2018, according to Statista.com, JTI’s parent company Japan Tobacco (JT) continues to dominate the Japanese tobacco market. But its cigarette sales volume shrank by 8.5 percent year on year to 63.2 billion sticks between January and October 2019. While the company’s adjusted operating profit for the international tobacco business grew at a constant 10.2 percent in the third quarter of 2019, adjusted operating profit for the Japanese domestic tobacco business decreased by 4.3 percent due to unfavorable cigarette volume during that period, JT said.
The environment in Japan has changed significantly for smokers over the past years. Increasing taxation and the introduction of restrictive legislation in preparation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games have considerably impacted consumer behavior. Introduced in 2018, the Health Promotion Law aims to restrict smoking in public in order to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke.
Compared to other industry nations, Japan still has a high rate of smoking, especially among adult males. According to JT’s annual survey on smoking, the percentage of male and female smokers in 2017 was 28.2 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Since the time of JT’s privatization, the male smoking rate has dropped by more than half.
Increasing product variety
The most drastic decline in smoking, however, occurred after the introduction of a new product category. According to a study by the American Cancer Society published in June 2019, the rate of decline in cigarette sales accelerated from 2 percent per year from 2011 through 2015 to 10 percent per year for the same period. The 2018 report “No Fire, No Smoke: The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction” (GSTHR) revealed that cigarette sales volumes in Japan fell 14 percent from 2016 to 2018 and a further 13 percent in 2018.
The acceleration was triggered when PMI began test marketing its IQOS heated-tobacco product (HTP) in 2014. Japan presented a near-optimal environment for such a product. Japanese consumers are known for their health consciousness, their love of innovative products and their tech savviness. What’s more, Japan prohibits the sale of nicotine vapor products, which means there is little competition from other alternative products.
Although the initially rapid growth of HTPs decelerated after February 2018, the new category continues to churn the country’s tobacco sector. JT estimates HTPs to account for 30 percent of Japan’s overall tobacco market by the end of 2020 compared to 21 percent in 2018.
Japan represents about 85 percent of the global $6.3 billion HTP market, according to Euromonitor International. With a 71.8 percent share of the Japanese HTP market in 2018, IQOS continues to be the incumbent, according to Reuters, but it faces increasing competition. BAT’s Glo held a share of 20.1 percent in 2018. JT’s Ploom Tech, the second to enter the market, accounted for 8.1 percent of the country’s HTP market during 2018 and approximately 9 percent during the third quarter of 2019.
Unlike competing products that heat tobacco directly, Ploom Tech generates vapor that passes through a capsule filled with granulated tobacco. While it emits far less sidestream smoke than other HTPs, some consumers have found its taste too weak. In January 2019, JT introduced Ploom Tech+, which the company says offers richer flavor and improved satisfaction. Its Ploom S heats tobacco sticks directly. To boost sales, the company also started offering starter kit sales at half price.
Both products are designed to give a stronger taste and to lure back those who tried Ploom Tech but stopped using it, Mutsuo Iwai, head of JT’s domestic tobacco business, told Reuters at their launch. He also stated the company intends to become No. 1 in the Japanese HTP market, arguing that a success in the world’s largest HTP market would lead to success globally.
“In time, JT can be a strong competitor in tobacco heating, but it is currently a little behind its main rivals, and it may take time and several product iterations for it to really get this category right,” says Fell.
Wanted: a new approach
The man leading the JT Group through its transition is Masamichi Terabatake, a JT veteran who took over as CEO in early 2018 and earned his stripes by integrating the company’s two largest overseas acquisitions—R.J. Reynolds’ international business and Gallaher. Before taking the helm, Masamichi spent much time in JT’s strategy division where he was also responsible for NGPs. In an interview with the Financial Times, Masamichi described the challenges a company with decades of expertise in a low-tech sector faces when it has to “become brilliant” overnight in the field of handheld consumer electronics. While the traditional cigarette business ends with the sale of the product, NGP manufacturers must develop an ongoing relationship with their customers; an entire ecosystem must be established around the new devices.
“I think the CEO is right,” says Fell. “The route to market is different, and there are more options for marketing these products, including via digital channels. Consumers switching for the first time from combustible products might need some guidance and ongoing support. There are different supply chain challenges because you have to coordinate the availability of devices along with the consumables, which can present forecasting challenges. And the innovation cycle needs to speed up—it’s important to have visibility on the product pipeline several versions ahead, and companies prob- ably have to work with external partners more often than they have been used to with conventional cigarettes.”
Apart from making greater inroads into the NGP segment, one of Masamichi’s tasks will be to broaden the company’s geographical footprint, which is presently focused on Japan, Russia and Europe. The group has already started to expand into emerging markets with recent acquisitions in Indonesia (Karyadibya Mahardhika), the Philippines (Mighty Corp.) and Bangladesh (the Akij Group’s tobacco business).
To stimulate further growth, JT will remain on the lookout for acquisitions, albeit perhaps through smaller deals as opportunities for larger acquisitions have dwindled in the wake of industry consolidation. Fell is optimistic. If the JT Group gets its strategy and execution right, he says, “there should still be plenty of room for growth and value creation in its core business.”

February 3, 2020
Keeping Track
An overview of track-and-trace technologies
By Michael Butterworth
Track-and-trace solutions in all their various forms are currently all the rage. Retailers are increasingly looking to use metrics to demonstrate supply chain efficiencies and provide transparency over things like delivery times and sustainability information.
In this article, we take a look at some of the different technologies deployed in traceability schemes, key strategic questions to consider when structuring your contracts and some of the different legal aspects to the data generated in the process.
Technology
Bar codes or QR codes feeding into a centralized database
Retailers may want different partners to input data or scan an item at various stages in the production process. By maintaining a centralized data repository, the retailer can use the data to oversee the various stages in the production process.
However, the production line needs to be updated to apply the codes, and manufacturers will need to think through the impact on the production process: If supply chain partners need to apply or generate a code (potentially from a third-party source, such as the ultimate retailer), how will this new “raw material” fit into the production timeline?
The European Commission imposed this type of solution for verifying the authenticity of medicinal products and tobacco products under the Falsified Medicines Directive and the Tobacco Products Directive, requiring the industry to establish data repository systems allowing data to be generated and tracked at all stages from manufacture to point of sale.
Interestingly, the commission decided not to use this solution for medical devices where the requirement is simply to apply a unique ID number to each device and log that number with the regulator, but there is no end-to-end tracking system in place.
Similarly, for customs tracking purposes, shippers only need to provide their container status messages (an existing code used in the shipping industry) to the European Anti- Fraud Office (OLAF), which itself maintains a directory.
Connected devices/internet of things
These are used for tracking larger assets (e.g., shipping containers or delivery vehicles). A connected internet of things solution can provide real-time data on the location of products or other key status indicators, like temperature or shock. This type of solution can be used to provide data streams to end users where the design and functionality of the user interface will be important for establishing a brand and recognition.
Organizations purchasing this type of solution may therefore want to own or have exclusive rights in the user interface. They will then need to make sure that the connected devices meet the technical requirements to operate with the user interface and that the contract with the hardware vendor includes the necessary rights for interoperability if the user interface is procured from a separate vendor.
If you’re tracking devices using a global connectivity solution, you will also need to check that your solution is suitably “future-proofed” for countries switching off their 2G and 3G networks and those with more plans to do so (www.emnify. com/blog/global-2g-phase-out).
Blockchain
Distributed ledger technology has been generating a lot of excitement for a while and has been developed for track-and-trace applications in a number of situations, often for tracking high value or unique assets, such as diamonds, jewelry or artwork.
The key advantage of a blockchain is that each transaction is verified across the blockchain, so there is no single authority that could manipulate the transaction records. For many track-and-trace scenarios, that is not necessarily a concern. However, for high value or unique assets, there is a clear vulnerability that a blockchain could help address.
The difficulty then is linking up the asset to the blockchain. This would also require a system of unique IDs. Then the vulnerability shifts from ensuring the integrity of the single authority to the various players seeking to first register a unique ID on the blockchain.
Whatever the relationships between the players in the particular market, there will need to be a comprehensive system of contractual relationships to set out what the legal effect of a particular transaction would be and how that relates to activities on the blockchain.
Structure
Third-party integrations
It’s important to consider the key stakeholders in the ecosystem. The real value from track-and-trace solutions often comes from integrations with third parties—for example, if a retailer provides a platform for suppliers to input their data or if a logistics company allows customers to access and view data on their deliveries.
Centralized authority
If you’re tracking delivery vans, containers or other items where the real interest is in what’s inside them, who will have access to the manifest data? If you’re tracking larger or more valuable assets, do you need verification that the manifest matches the contents? If so, who will do this?
Ownership of the solution
One of the key strategic questions to consider before embarking on a track-and-trace project is whether you require exclusive use of the solution to establish a brand name—for example, if you want to differentiate your core product by providing a unique data service on top, or, alternatively, if you simply want something off the shelf that can be more easily swapped out for a competing product further down the line. A hybrid strategy could be to use different vendors for different components, which can prove more challenging from a contractual/operational risk perspective as a systems integration role may be required.
Data
Commercialize and exploit
Track-and-trace solutions generate vast amounts of data. It’s key at the outset to consider what value you want to derive from the data. What rights will you give customers and business partners to access the data? Will you generate any analytics using the data, and what sort of data products do you want to generate? You should make sure you have license terms in place with any third parties accessing the data, making sure you retain the rights you need for any future commercial exploitation.
Your supply contracts should make clear who owns the rights to the data, who backs up the data and whether you need any support with data portability on termination.
Personal data
If you’re tracking people, such as delivery drivers, then you will need to think about your EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) obligations. Have you checked if you need to do a data protection impact assessment? Even if you’re not tracking people, the GDPR is likely to be engaged given most solutions will collect personal data for the users logging into the system. Have you thought about how the GDPR will affect the contracting structure and transfers of personal data overseas?
Nonpersonal data
You may have missed it, but there’s now a regulation on the free flow of nonpersonal data (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/free-flow-non-personal-data). Initially, this will mainly impact buyers in the public sector who need to think carefully before imposing any restrictions on the territory of data storage. Look out for the codes of conduct envisaged under this regulation, which the commission will encourage service providers to develop by Nov. 29, 2020, and implement six months later.

Michael Butterworth
Michael Butterworth is senior associate of technology, outsourcing and privacy at Fieldfisher, an international law firm headquartered in London.
February 3, 2020
Key Consideration
Amid many changes in the market for primary tobacco machinery, one variable remains constant: demand for quality.
By George Gay
Demand for tobacco industry primary department equipment (PDE) is stable, according to Lorenzo Curina, sales director at Godioli & Bellanti. And if anybody is qualified to assess the situation, it is Curina, who has been involved in the business for more than 40 years.
I guess that stability is the best that can be hoped for given the trend to tobacco manufacturing consolidation and the decline in tobacco consumption, which is now basically a global phenomenon. In fact, you have to wonder whether things aren’t looking less than stable for some of the companies not so firmly established as Godioli & Bellanti, which has been in operation since 1923.
I started to wonder about this after being asked to write this story on PDE. I sent out 20 emails to companies listed in the Tobacco Reporter Buyers’ Guide as supplying this type of equipment, three of which were not delivered, possibly because the companies are no longer in business. Of the 17 that reached their targets, only six elicited replies, leading me to surmise that PDE is not a major part of the activities of up to 11 of the companies. Of the six companies that replied, only one, Godioli & Bellanti, followed through and provided information. One withdrew because the company was not currently involved in PDE, one withdrew because of unforeseen circumstances and three faded out of the picture.
This does not amount to evidence of the imminent demise of the PDE business. Indeed, one interpretation of what happened is that some of these companies were so busy going about their day jobs that they had no time for peripheral activities. But it tends to give support to other speculation.
For instance, as mentioned above, the consumption of cigarettes is falling around the world and is likely to keep falling, especially given that, outside China, the four major international tobacco companies are actively or passively promoting the demise of smoking. They are saying that people should give up smoking and/or are providing next-generation products to make the transition away from smoking easier. And while it is conceivable that these new products might fail, it is inconceivable, I think, that, even in this case, smoking will be allowed to reassert itself. While governments are often beholden to big business, as can clearly be seen from the failure to confront environmental destruction head on, most governments cannot be seen to be in the pay of the tobacco industry.
Of course, smoking still underpins a huge business, and providing products for that business requires and will require for a long time the operation of primary processing departments within cigarette factories and other facilities. However, we must assume that the number of factories outside China—and probably inside China—is shrinking as consolidation takes an ever-stronger stranglehold on the tobacco industry and that this trend will continue.
It is true that the remaining factories will need to be kept going, but PDE suppliers have long said that their equipment is long-lasting, and the fact of the matter is that much of this equipment comprises large pieces of metal that can be altered or refurbished by nonspecialized engineering companies operating in the locality of the factories, which can also supply the sorts of parts needed regularly or from time to time, including V-belts, pulleys and electrical motors.
Sophisticated technology
But at this point, I need to insert a rider to stop people clogging my inbox with complaints. While PDE comprises much steel, it also includes some very sophisticated technology. In fact, Curina told me that while primary processing lines had always been characterized by high-quality design and materials, it was his observation that quality was now even more important than it was previously.
It is difficult to know what exactly the PDE developments being requested by tobacco manufacturers are because Godioli & Bellanti provides equipment that is customized for each client and the details of which are confidential. However, Curina said that, generally, manufacturers were looking for “innovative proposals.” They were paying particular attention to process controls and automation with much attention to safety and traceability. And they were going to great lengths to avoid contamination, requiring certification for such things as PDE component materials.
Asked to name what pieces of PDE were currently in demand, Curina mentioned fully automatic, horizontal and vertical slicers, direct conditioning cylinders and direct conditioning and casing cylinder, flow control devices comprising electronic weighing belts, bulk feeders (complete with indexing conveyors) and metering tubes, and cut-rag feeders to cigarette makers. Godioli & Bellanti, he said, was especially in demand for its fully automatic blending and storage silos.
Demand for PDE, like demand for many other things, depends on a whole range of issues, including the need to renew equipment in line with a cyclical schedule that maintains processing at as close to the optimum level as possible. At the same time, innovative interventions will spur demand, though not always completely successfully. Fifteen to 20 years ago, attempts were made at upping the automation levels of primaries, but these were not entirely successful, especially in regard to reducing labor head counts—automation being largely about improving productivity along with efficiency, flexibility and safety.
Because tobacco is a natural product, there was a need for experienced people who, from time to time, could touch the tobacco, examine it visually and smell it, and these were tasks that were not possible to automate. It is likely, I think, that it would now be possible to automate these functions, or some of them but probably, with the exception of certain aspects of visual inspection, at a cost beyond anything justifiable in respect of the traditional primary processing of tobacco in the 2020s.
Dealing with uncertainty
Even 10 years ago when the industry was only edging toward reduced-harm products, the time would probably not have been right to invest heavily in unproven technology, whether that technology was concerned with leaf processing, primary processing or secondary processing. After all, though the tobacco industry has lived with uncertainty for many years, such uncertainty had reached unprecedented levels, and even seemingly everyday events, such as tax increases, could cause the value of investments and innovation to be called into question. Today, in some markets at least, uncertainty is the only certainty.
And 10 years ago, the industry seemed to be heading in other directions. Outside of China, the trend was toward shorter run products, some of which had to be manufactured without the flavors that were once possible to add. The trend to shorter runs clearly impacts the speed at which a manufacturer can operate its secondary machinery given that speed and flexibility are not always the best bedfellows. In the primary, meanwhile, this trend is reflected in a need to produce smaller amounts of cut rag. Hence the arrival of mini primaries and microprimaries for the processing of small batches of leaf.
New directions
Now, there are new directions. The manufacture of sticks for heat-not-burn (HnB) products affects all areas of processing and production, though the changes required for different products vary considerably. In a 2017 report, Tobacco Reporter said that HnBs and tobacco-free nicotine-delivery products required alternatively processed tobaccos and practically no standard cut rag. This implied, eventually, the end of standard, traditional primaries: large tobacco processing plants, producing tons of cut rag per hour. Some of the next-generation tobacco products require new primary processes handling sheet tobaccos, special casings and heat/pressure treated tobaccos. Others require micronization/granulation processes that produce tobacco pellets of controlled porosity and/or permeability, nicotine extraction and powder/liquid fine dosing.
In fact, demand for new but traditional PDE can at times be squeezed from both ends. At the top end, if you like, there are the sorts of changes demanded by the manufacturing needs of HnB products and whatever tobacco-containing products that come next while at the other end, especially in straitened times, manufacturers have the opportunity to refurbish their existing machinery or buy secondhand, possibly refurbished equipment. In an issue of Tobacco Reporter published at the end of 2010, the point was made that at that time, there was a good demand for reconditioned primary equipment. In part, of course, that demand was probably down, directly or indirectly, to the global financial crisis that was then in full swing. But it was no doubt also due to the fact that key pieces of such machinery were often made of stainless steel, which meant they were built to last, so donor equipment was relatively easy to refurbish. Of course, refurbished cutters have always been in demand as has refurbished equipment in general in countries that apply high tariffs to the import of new machinery.
But could the refurbishment of existing primary equipment explain any fall in demand for new equipment that might be happening now? It’s difficult to say, but one of the points made in that story 10 years ago was that if the then-current demand for refurbished primary equipment were maintained, the likelihood was that the supply of donor equipment would dry up, especially the supply of donor equipment that could be obtained at a cost that would allow the refurbisher to sell on the equipment and still make a profit.
Finally, in respect of the large-scale primaries that still process the largest volumes of leaf tobacco, the perennial question that crops up is whether it is better to design leaf processing equipment in Europe or the U.S. and construct it elsewhere or whether it is still worthwhile to ship often bulky pieces of finished machinery around the world. Usually what you are told is that it depends on the policies of the manufacturer buying the equipment and their attitude toward machine longevity/quality, on the technical specification of the particular piece of equipment, on the cost of freight and on the tariffs applicable in the country where the equipment is to be shipped. But perhaps, as Curina made clear above, the emphasis is really on machine quality, including its technical specifications. It is significant, I think, that the company that responded to this feature told me that it ships its equipment around the world from its base in Italy where labor costs are not low.
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.

January 29, 2020
PMTA Contracts Signed
Avail Vapor has signed nine major brand U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory contracts. As a result, Avail Vapor will take the lead in submitting an array of products for the FDA’s premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process, with the first of those applications being submitted in early in 2020 and completing the portfolio before the May 2020 deadline.
“We are thrilled these major brands are placing their trust in us as we move forward together to provide leadership in raising the standards of our industry to help build trust in our products,” said Russ Rogers, chief operating officer of Avail Vapor.
“We have spent significant time, focus and energy in building our regulatory ISO 17205 analytical lab and manufacturing teams to position our company for success with regard to the FDA’s public health expectations. Collaborating with great U.S. e-liquid companies and international device manufacturers on such a critical initiative as PMTAs will validate the value Avail [Vapor] can add in ensuring the appropriateness of these products on the market. Ensuring the highest quality standards in the ENDS [electronic nicotine-delivery system] and CBD industries is at the forefront of our mission.”
All e-liquid and device manufacturers have until May 2020 to submit PMTAs for ENDS products under section 910 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This includes liquids, devices and any affiliated products related to electronic nicotine-delivery systems. From there, the FDA has six months to review applications.
If the product application provides scientific data “to demonstrate that marketing the new tobacco product is appropriate for the protection of public health,” the FDA will issue a marketing order, which means the product can continue to be sold to consumers. Avail Vapor plans to submit its first batch of PMTAs to the FDA for its own e-liquid brand of products very early in 2020.
“When an e-liquid company signs on with us for contract manufacturing, we are able to assure them that roughly 40 percent of the PMTA process is already complete based on the work we have done to develop our manufacturing and quality systems,” said Vince Angelico, director of regulatory affairs for Avail Vapor.
“We can provide a turnkey solution to meet their needs with a science-driven approach to testing for harmful and potentially harmful constituents—demonstrating good manufacturing practices—as well as additional analytical lab testing critical to the PMTA process. This provides a cost-effective path for e-liquid brand holders who are committed to remaining on the market and may otherwise have to exit in 2020.”
To further service the regulatory contracts, Avail Vapor has plans to open a facility in Southern California.
January 23, 2020
Green Light for Low-Nicotine Cigarettes
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued marketing orders to permit the sale in the U.S. of 22nd Century Group’s proprietary low-nicotine Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol cigarettes.
After reviewing the premarket tobacco product applications (PMTA) submitted by 22nd Century Group in December 2018, the FDA concluded that the marketing of Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol cigarettes is “appropriate for the protection of the public health.”
Among other things, the agency determined that nonsmokers, including youth, are unlikely to start smoking Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol cigarettes, and those who experiment with the low-nicotine cigarettes are less likely to become addicted than people who experiment with conventional cigarettes.
According to the FDA, conventional cigarettes made in the U.S. on average contain tobacco with a nicotine content of 10 mg to 14 mg per cigarette. Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol have nicotine content between 0.2 mg to 0.7 mg per cigarette.
“Conventional cigarettes are designed to create and sustain addiction to nicotine,” said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, in a statement announcing the authorization.
“In announcing the FDA’s comprehensive plan to regulate tobacco and nicotine in July 2017, we noted our commitment to taking actions that will allow more addicted smokers to reduce their dependence and decrease the likelihood that future generations will become addicted to cigarettes.
“Today’s authorization represents the first product to successfully demonstrate the potential for these types of tobacco products to help reduce nicotine dependence among addicted smokers,” stated Zeller.
“FDA authorization of 22nd Century’s proprietary Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol brand cigarettes is a major milestone in our efforts to drive meaningful change in the tobacco industry,” said Michael Zercher, president and chief operating officer of 22nd Century Group.
“22nd Century joins just two other companies in having marketing orders granted under the FDA’s PMTA regulatory pathway. Those other companies, Philip Morris International and Swedish Match, are very large, global tobacco companies with significant financial, scientific and regulatory affairs resources, so we are extremely proud of the world-class work done by our regulatory team to successfully secure this marketing authorization from the FDA.”
January 23, 2020
Tobacco Shares Rise on Flavor Ban Announcement
Shares in British American Tobacco (BAT) and Imperial Brands rose after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) exempted menthol and tobacco from a list of e-cigarette flavors that it has banned under new guidelines.
“Following a significant period of disruption and uncertainty, this regulatory clarity is a welcome step towards returning the U.S. vapor market to stability,” BAT wrote in a statement.
The new FDA guidelines would also allow tobacco makers to bring back some of the banned flavors if their marketing applications passed a substantive review by the FDA.
“In addition to exempting menthol, the FDA guidance is clear that flavored products will return to the market once they have been approved through the premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process,” said Simon Evans, spokesman for Imperial Brands.
BAT submitted a marketing application for its Vuse Solo e-cigarette to the FDA in November while Imperial Brands said it would submit its applications for its Blu e-cigarettes before May.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), however, said the Trump administration had broken its promise to eliminate the flavored e-cigarettes that are driving youth nicotine addiction.
“By leaving menthol flavored e-cigarettes widely available and completely exempting liquid flavored products, this policy will not stop the youth e-cigarette epidemic,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the CTFK.
By contrast, Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, described the decision to exempt open system products from the ban as a huge victory for public health.
“By allowing vape shops to continue selling flavored vape liquids, the FDA is preventing hundreds of thousands of ex-smokers from being forced to return to smoking,” he said.
But Robin Koval, CEO and president of the Truth Initiative, said that the argument that flavored e-cigarettes and vape shops are necessary for smokers to switch from cigarettes ignores the data.
“The data show that the majority of adult e-cigarette users either never previously used cigarettes or continue to smoke, thereby undermining any potential public health benefit,” she said.
Vapor industry representatives, meanwhile, expressed concern about the FDA’s determination that makers of the nicotine liquids are manufacturers and thus required to submit PMTAs for their products by the court-ordered deadline of May 12.
According to Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, there has been little “chatter” about liquid manufacturers actually filing such applications.
If they fail to do so by the deadline, many small vapor shops dependent on large nicotine liquid makers could begin closing in mid-May from lack of product from legal sources.

January 23, 2020
The Tastemakers
Who’s who among supplies of tobacco and vapor flavorings
TR Staff Report
Tobacco and e-liquid companies use flavorings to produce consistent, high-quality products and set their brands apart from the competition. In today’s heavily regulated tobacco manufacturing environment characterized by a dwindling number of approved ingredients, superior skills and know-how are in high demand. The professional flavorings supplier must be highly experienced not only in new technologies and smoke chemistry but also in patent protection and other legal issues. And because flavorings are keys to brand identity, the importance of confidentiality cannot be exaggerated.
Alternative Ingredients
Established in 2014, Alternative Ingredients is fully dedicated to next-generation products and electronic nicotine-delivery systems. the company has a state-of-the-art creation center and an ISO 7 production clean room. Alternative Ingredients develops special flavors designed for next-generation products and electronic nicotine-delivery systems. It offers customized finished e-liquids and a variety of nicotine solutions.
Borgwaldt Flavor
Borgwaldt Flavor, part of Hauni Maschinenbau, develops and produces flavors and casings for cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, water pipe tobacco, RYO/MYO, chewing tobacco, moist snuff, kreteks, heated-tobacco products and filter capsules as well as flavors and liquids for e-cigarettes. Borgwaldt Flavor also offers tobacco additives such as anti-mold agents, burn additives and humectants as well as insect control and monitoring material. Borgwaldt Flavor works in close collaboration with customers by offering consulting services in product development, blending, processing and manufacturing technology.
Curt Georgi
Founded in Germany in 1875, Curt Georgi is a traditional flavor and fragrance house—and still family-owned. Located in Boblingen, Germany, the company has more than 11,000 square meters of production facilities. With subsidiaries in many countries and professional partners around the world, Curt Georgi is able to offer its products globally. Curt Georgi offers flavors for cigarettes, cigars, shisha and other products as well as a complete service package, including professional, free consulting on all aspects of tobacco product manufacturing. The product range consists of burley casing, flue-cured casing, stem casing, Virginia casing, top flavors, full-blend casing (for blended, Virginia and kretek cigarettes) and irritation “improvers” in ready-to-use or concentrated varieties. The company also specializes in flavors for water pipe tobacco, pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco.
Hertz & Selck
Hertz & Selck develops and produces high-class flavors for the international tobacco industry. Its wide-ranging portfolio covers flavors from classic natural extracts through exclusive top flavors to the latest fashionable flavors. Applications comprise cigarettes, cigarillos and cigars, rolling tobacco, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff and water pipe tobacco, filters, cigarette papers and e-liquids plus regional products such as khaini, kreteks, bidis and snus. With its focus on tobacco industry products, a network of distribution partners and representatives on four continents, Hertz & Selck is well established today. Thanks to its extensive experience on the international market and its familiarity with the requirements of end consumers, Hertz & Selck supports its customers throughout all phases of product development, from the initial idea to market launch. Hertz & Selck aims for excellent quality in all areas of activity. The company attributes its success to its passion for tobacco, which has shaped Hertz & Selck for more than 80 years.
Hertz Flavors
Dedicated to the tobacco industry, Hertz Flavors has established itself as Europe’s leading supplier for unique flavors of premium quality made in Hamburg, Germany. The company’s philosophy is simple: to provide tailor-made solutions for superior taste. Together with its customers, Hertz Flavors creates flavors for tobacco products with character, including top flavors, casings or other tobacco additives for cigarettes, shisha, kretek, RYO/MYO, heat-not-burn, cigars/cigarillos, pipe, snus/snuff, capsules/filter, e-liquids or any other innovative product category.
Mane Flavors
Headquartered in Vouvry, Switzerland, Mane’s tobacco business unit offers the following products to the tobacco industry: top flavors, top casings and casings, natural extracts, essential oils, absolutes, menthol, microencapsulated flavor systems for capsule/molecular encapsulates, development, consulting and tobacco blend formulation. Worldwide, the company has 21 production facilities, and its tobacco business unit has five tobacco flavor development units. Most recently, e-liquids and reduced-risk product applications have been at the forefront of new Mane technology developments. The tobacco business unit has secured a global network of partnerships to ensure a seamless development and supply line for e-flavors and e-liquids, guaranteeing the current and future regulatory compliance of products while also ensuring the traceability of all raw materials.
Mother Murphy’s Laboratories
Founded in 1946, Mother Murphy’s Laboratories is a privately owned flavor manufacturer located in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. the company began working closely with the tobacco industry in the late 1980s and is currently selling tobacco flavors in more than 15 countries. Its offerings include complete casings, flavor for casings, top dressings, top flavors and functional ingredients—all designed and tested for applications like cigarettes, cigars, water pipes, smokeless tobacco products, filters, etc.
Taiga International
Offering more than just flavoring, Taiga International’s services range from tobacco selection to blend development and cigarette design. Based in Breendonk, Belgium, Taiga International’s products include flavors, casings, enhancers and other ingredients for cigarettes, cigarillos, kreteks, shisha, pipe tobacco, RYO/MYO, snuff and snus. The company also offers flavors for e-cigarettes, e-liquids and e-hookahs. To mimic the smoking sensation of a traditional cigarette as closely as possible, Taiga International has developed a special series of e-liquid flavors. Different varieties are available, from traditional or brand-type cigarette flavors to food flavors. These flavors include blended-type top flavors, burley flavor, chocolate, menthol and Virginia top flavor types.
Tobacco Technology Inc.
Founded in 1975 in Maryland, USA, Tobacco Technology Inc. (TTI) develops customized flavors for smoking products, including casings, cigarettes, water pipes, snuff, snus, chew, kreteks, RYO, pipe tobaccos, hemp and dissolvables. TTI also offers consulting services to facilitate flavor, process and product development. TTI subsidiary E-LiquiTech is dedicated to e-liquids, bottling and cartomizer filling. TTI Flavors s.r.l. will open in Assisi, Italy, in 2020 and is a manufacturing facility for flavors, casings and e-liquids, bringing faster delivery to customers in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Russia.

January 22, 2020
TABEXPO Impressions
The global tobacco and nicotine industries gathered in Amsterdam, Nov. 12-14, to learn about the latest products and services.

January 17, 2020
Doubling Down
Imperial Brands’ innovation and science director, David Newns, discusses the company’s mission to offer the world’s smokers something better than cigarettes.
By George Gay
I occasionally wonder why, given the obstacles strewn in their path, some of the companies aiming to advance the cause of tobacco harm reduction by developing next-generation products (NGPs) don’t abandon their quest—a thought that was brought into even sharper focus last year by the tribulations surrounding the issues of flavor bans and lung disease in the U.S. Of course, for a number of reasons, the major tobacco manufacturers could not abandon their harm reduction products completely, but, with solid traditional tobacco product businesses behind them, they could surely ease back on the accelerator pedals of their NGP development motors.
And this was the basis of one of the questions I raised when I had the opportunity on Nov. 26 to speak on the telephone with David Newns, group innovation and science director for Imperial Brands. Was it worth investing in NGP innovation and the science underpinning it given the often irrational but effective opposition that was aligned against such efforts? “I think that at times when things get harder, the only option is to double down,” said Newns. “We’ve made a commitment as a company to offer something better to the world’s smokers—that’s our mission—and therefore, we can only double down on our investment and double down on the hard work it takes to do the science and to have those difficult conversations with regulators and government agencies. The business is absolutely committed to delivering on that mission.”
Newns, who joined Imperial Brands two years ago when it acquired Nerudia, the NGP innovation business he co-founded, is responsible for what he describes as a global community of about 300 people involved in two core areas: product innovation and product science. The innovation team, which is based largely in Liverpool, England, is charged with developing products for Imperial Brands’ NGP portfolio, which currently includes vapor products, heated-tobacco products and oral nicotine-delivery (OND) products. The product science team, meanwhile, is responsible for the scientific assessment and safety of those products: ensuring the company delivers products that meet its own product stewardship standards and deliver the potential to reduce, at population levels, the harm caused by tobacco consumption. It also works with regulators on getting those products approved.
Newns’ teams work within all NGP categories, including some not yet in commercial distribution. They work on innovations that can be implemented quickly—steps forward that, for instance, might deliver different nicotine or flavor experiences to consumers—and they work on game-changing innovations whose potential lies further in the future. Imperial Brands’ innovation processes, Newns said, were based on its being consumer led but also on consumer leading. It was a consumer-led organization that spent a lot of time with consumers, understanding their wants and needs. But, at the end of the day, consumers didn’t know what they didn’t know, and it was Imperial Brands’ role to bring them to a place they never knew existed.
Looking outward
Newns readily admits that achieving such game-changing shifts is easier said than done, but he indicated that one way forward was to make a cultural shift. While Imperial Brands operated within an industry that traditionally was quite insular, his company differentiated itself by looking outward, he said. It had a team that scoured the world talking to inventors, potential partners and anybody who could add value to its processes, and it was in touch with agencies that specialized in predicting the future, particularly consumer trends. In fact, he ended the interview with a request to anybody who thought they could help Imperial Brands on its harm reduction “journey” to get in touch. “[W]e are not going to do this on our own,” he said. “No one knows all of the answers, but together, we can certainly make harm reduction a reality.”
Most of the projects Imperial Brands is working on already have some kind of open innovation input. For instance, Newns said, the company was working currently on nicotine droplet size—cooperating with partners who could help the company better understand this aspect of its products. Overall, it was about leveraging those sorts of capabilities and employing Imperial Brands’ skills in putting together the acquired data and knowledge so as to accelerate the pace of bringing better products to consumers.
At the same time, however, Newns cautions about the industry trying to get too far ahead of itself. Ten years ago, he said, when vaping started, the industry made a promise to smokers that it hadn’t yet fulfilled: It was going to make switching from smoking to vaping fairly easy. A lot of people had subsequently tried vaping and discounted it, so it was the industry’s responsibility to make good on that original promise. And in this respect, a lot had been learned about what consumers wanted, and the technology had changed in line with those demands, so some people were returning to vaping. But it was necessary even at this stage to ensure that expectations were managed appropriately. The industry was not going to replicate the combustible cigarette with something that was not a combustible cigarette.
In this regard, Newns said that Imperial Brands was working on, and saw a lot of scope for, technologies that went beyond its current core NGP categories, though he again warned that bringing these to market would take time, partly because of issues to do with consumer acceptance. Vaping was more than 10 years old, and it was still not trusted by a large proportion of consumers, so Imperial Brands would develop new technologies, new products and new categories but commercialize them only when consumers were ready to use them.
Flexible solutions
This idea of consumers being ready—or not—is an interesting one because Newns made the point that once smokers had made the leap of accepting vaping, they were more ready to look at other, perhaps more radical, changes. But each consumer was unique, and products of the future needed to be flexible enough to allow different consumers to use more than one product and use them to suit their particular needs, which might change throughout the day.
Imperial Brands’ Blu vapor brand is said to provide an example of this type of flexibility. The closed system Myblu was a convenient device with a wide range of nicotine strengths and flavors from which consumers could choose what was right for them at particular times of the day, Newns said. And work was under way on a new generation of the brand, with one aim being to develop a device that would make it easier for smokers to switch to vaping.
Blu is available in 21 markets and is said to be doing well in many of those markets. And while 21 might not seem huge given that there are something like 190 countries in the world, Newns tends to look at this issue from the other end of the telescope where your gaze is focused on 169 potential markets. The existence of 21 markets for Blu was the wrong way to look at things, he said, because it represented only a snapshot in time. It was more important to consider where the smokers were than where the vapers were. In Germany, Imperial Brands had created the closed system vapor market from nothing, and that had been highly successful for the company. If you didn’t launch in markets where there were no vapers, you would never create a new market.
Newns accepts that the market situation is complicated by vaping bans, restrictions and simple economics, especially in countries such as India that should offer amazing opportunities, but he said that Imperial Brands’ mission was to convert a billion smokers to better products, even if that meant doing it one smoker at a time.
Focusing on what you can control
The trouble is that there is a major obstacle to such progress, at least in the U.S. and those countries that tend to follow where the U.S. leads. Powerful, influential agencies in the U.S., urged on by various special interest groups, have laid trip wires for the forward steps the vapor industry has tried to make, especially last year. But Newns refused to be swamped by the negative. He accepted that a lack of facts and data had led to initial missteps by some in the U.S. over the outbreak of acute lung disease among a number of people using vapor devices. He said that though the focus of investigative efforts had since narrowed to vitamin E acetate, a thickening agent not used in any Blu products, those missteps had a significant, detrimental effect on harm reduction. But his reaction was to say that it was the industry’s duty to focus on those things that were within its control, and those things were developing products that could be shown scientifically to add an overall population health benefit then trying to convince regulators and governments to join the industry on its harm reduction journey.
When I protested that getting regulators and governments on board had often proved all but impossible, Newns pointed to the ongoing reconsideration of the proposed U.S. federal ban on vaping flavors that had been set in motion after the industry and consumers had made fact-based presentations on the role that flavors played. And in the U.K., the government had been consistently positive about vaping for a sustained period of time. Even when things got tough in the U.S. last year, the U.K. government had doubled down on its support for the vapor category. “And I think that’s the policy that leads to better health outcomes for populations,” he said. “Hopefully that instills the confidence for smokers to move to better alternatives. I think that messages that are not clear lead to confusion and paralysis.”
This makes it sound as if it is all about vaping when it is not. In the spring of 2019, Imperial Brands entered the heated-tobacco product arena with the trial launch of Pulze in Fukuoka, Japan—a trial that, according to Newns, prompted “really great” feedback and led to the nationwide launch of the product at the beginning of November. Consumers were said to have liked the futuristic look of the device and to have appreciated that using it left no lingering smell.
Meanwhile, in the OND category, Imperial Brands’ Zone X tobacco-free snus (branded as Skruf, the company’s traditional snus brand, in some markets) was said to have been launched and well received in Austria and Germany, two countries that are not traditional snus markets. Newns described the product as “exciting,” one that allowed people to consume nicotine while driving or performing other activities that required them to use their hands.
January 17, 2020
Trader Versus Critter
Proper pest infestation control remains an essential issue in tobacco warehousing and logistics.
By Stefanie Rossel
Tobacco leaf feels like home to a number of insects, and that continues to be a challenge during transport and storing of the costly base material for combustible cigarettes. In stored raw tobacco, the dreaded cigarette beetle, also known as Lasioderma serricorne, and the similarly destructive tobacco moth (Ephestia elutella) find the perfect conditions to hatch the next generation—or rather, generations as the insects are prolific: In ideal circumstances—for example, in tobacco bales where there are no natural enemies—the female cigarette beetle can produce up to 32 billion descendants per year. The insects thrive in warm and humid warehouse environments in which the larvae feed on dried tobacco, pressed lamina or cut rag, contaminating the commodity with their excretions and thus making it unusable.
The creatures are also hard to extinguish. The design of their respiratory systems allows the beetles to survive a long time with little gas exchange and low levels of oxygen. In each stage of its lifecycle—beetle, egg, larvae, pupae, cocoon—the insect has special characteristics that allow it to survive.
Moth and beetle infestations are responsible for annual losses of between $400 million and $800 million globally, according to industry estimates.
Needless to say, infestation control is essential in the transportation and storage of tobacco. To fight the parasites, Coresta recommends three treatments. An efficient but rarely employed method is freezing the tobacco to below 20 degrees Celsius. The technology is expensive and not apt for handling the high volumes common to cigarette production, hence it is applied only to high-value leaves used for cigars.
According to the fourth edition of Coresta Guide No. 2: Technical Guide for Phosphine Fumigation Parameters for the Control of Cigarette Beetle and Tobacco Moth from August 2019, phosphine gas (PH3), which has been used for decades, is still the main tool for management of infested tobacco. It requires low initial investment and involves low long-term cost. As warehouses can be completely sealed for fumigation, the process allows for high-volume treatment. If protocols are followed, it leaves no chemical residues after the treatment. However, because the treatment isn’t always applied, cigarette beetles are becoming increasingly resistant to phosphine.
The third accepted standard, controlled atmosphere (CA), is a relatively new method in the tobacco industry. While the technology has been in use for more than 100 years for other commodities, it became an option for tobacco infestation control only 15 years ago. The process consists of a specially constructed, gastight chamber in which a commodity is treated in an artificially engineered atmosphere. In the case of infested tobacco, the oxygen level is reduced to below 0.5 percent to ensure a 100 percent mortality rate in all life stages of the insects. While requiring an upfront investment to set up the gastight chamber—which can even be created in a tent—CA offers a number of benefits. Next to the 100 percent mortality guarantee, it can be used for all types and varieties of leaf tobacco without affecting taste and color. Besides, it can be employed for treatment of tobacco products. It is not suitable for high-volume treatment, though.
As with the other methods, procedures must be strictly followed to make CA effective. In 2013, Coresta published its Guide No. 12, which recommended CA technology for infestation control and set up the technical standards for successful use. The guideline, which has been updated several times since its launch, has contributed to the increasing popularity of CA technology. “The industry was already aware of the issues regarding the PH3 resistance of the beetle and was waiting for solutions,” says Rene Luyten, director and owner of b-Cat in the Netherlands. “Since the guideline is out, the market is open for the controlled atmosphere system. Companies who face issues will make the investments in CA.”
B-Cat offers CA systems that can be attached to any hermetically sealed space, such as a storage room, container, silo, tent or bag. The system will then filter out the oxygen inside by using a nitrogen (N2) generator.

Uphill struggle
Of course, the tobacco landscape has changed significantly since 2013. Sales of traditional cigarettes have declined considerably, and many next-generation products are made without leaf tobacco. That development has yet to impact Luyten’s business, however.
“Up to this moment, these changes haven’t had any influences on our market; there is still tobacco, and the cigarette beetle is still present,” he says. “We don’t have an overview if the volumes are getting down. With our system, it’s still a small part of the total volume that is getting treated. We are still building new projects to support our clients with the fight against the PH3-resistant cigarette beetle.”
Luyten notes that demand for CA continues to grow with more companies taking the step using the technology to ensure a clean product and keep the beetle counts down. For b-Cat at this stage, demand for CA is still the highest in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. “It’s not really a fixed region,” says Luyten. “The cigarette beetle travels along with all the movements of the tobacco. We see a slight move from factories to other areas. There is a decrease of infestation in the European Union regions and a move toward [the] Middle East and Asia. For the cigarette beetle, this is a much better climate considering the higher temperatures, so the fight against the beetle isn’t over yet. In the colder climates, the beetle counts aren’t as high as in the warmer climates, but the issue is the same. We notice that between the leaf dealer and clients, the controlled atmosphere isn’t really going on, but at the factory site, which is the last stage, the [number of] projects increase.”
While Luyten is hesitant to put an exact figure on the share of global tobacco production lost to infestation—estimated by some at 1 percent—he says the concern extends beyond the lost volumes. “In the end, it’s all about getting the counts down in the factory and making sure the cigarette beetle will never be found in one of [the] manufacturers’ finished products on the market,” he says.
Luyten is encouraged that customers are increasingly aware of the need to keep their products clean after infestation treatment. “By using controlled atmosphere, we are able to ensure a 100 percent mortality of all life stages of the cigarette beetle, but once that’s performed, we have to protect the materials to keep them clean, something we pushed from the beginning but which wasn’t picked up directly. Nowadays, clients are more aware of this and are more willing to investigate the possibilities.”
Preventing a new invasion
Re-infestation remains an important risk, not only for CA but for all treatments. “Once the treatment is performed, re-infestation is always possible,” says Luyten. “We always discuss this topic with our clients and try to find the best solution in this scenario. Each project is different, and we have to decide whether we will treat the product just before shipment, i.e., export, or whether we treat the incoming product. We also need to assess what the flow of the product is after treatment and in which area the location is—is it colder or in a tropical climate? There are many possibilities on the market, but it always has to be clear that optimum conditions need to be created to avoid re-infestation. Unlike with CA systems, however, a 100 percent mortality rate can’t be guaranteed.”
To help avoid re-infestation after CA treatment, b-Cat’s subsidiary vQm a few years ago developed a method to vacuum-pack tobacco. The technology has since been refined. A patented valve enables flushing the vacuum-packed plastic with N2 or CO2 in a process called modified atmosphere packaging. It ensures insect-free packaging from the moment of packaging to arrival at the end user, according to vQm. Additionally, modified atmosphere packaging reduces oxidation, conserves the product and keeps moisture levels stable.
“VQm packaging is a great solution for cut rag and expanded tobacco,” says Luyten. “Advantages of the method include its effectiveness against insects in all life stages and protection against re-infestation. Furthermore, it enables savings in logistics of at least 25 percent. Weight and moisture loss are minimized, flavor and color preserved, [and] the tobacco freshness is retained. We have a stabilization during shipment and transportation, and the method does not impact tobacco-specific nitrosamines.”
B-Cat has more innovations in the pipeline. “There are always opportunities and improvements to be made—certainly when you think about the complete chain,” says Luyten. “All are related to each other and all are facing the same issue. The purchaser of the leaf is buying hopefully clean products. Many of these products are stored in the warmer climates and not always under the best circumstances. Here is the challenge: how to get the product clean and how to keep it clean from insects before sending it out. The challenge is to be able to ship the materials guaranteed insect-free to the client. However, the sources are limited, and there are many factors which have an influence.”

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.
January 17, 2020