Category: Featured

  • Zimbabwean Growers Urged to Grade Properly

    Zimbabwean Growers Urged to Grade Properly

    Image: Taco Tuinstra

    Zimbabwean tobacco growers’ representatives are urging their constituents to grade their leaf carefully to boost earnings during the selling season, reports The Herald.

    Key factors to consider during grading are plant position, color, quality, length and style, according to Zimbabwe’s tobacco research board, Kutsaga.

    “Prices in the tobacco market are determined during the opening day of the auction floors and depend on the grades of the crop,” said Victor Mariranyika, president of the Tobacco Farmers’ Union Trust. “The grading process starts even before the crop is planted, with factors such as land selection, preparation, fumigation, fertilization, seedling selection, topping and suckering, reaping, curing and storage all influencing the outcome.”

    While the tobacco plants are growing, the emerging leaves are categorized as prime, second and third, producing different colors during curing. Buyers pay more for certain colors and sizes.

    “The current practice of using color as the primary matrix for selling tobacco has proven to be unprofitable for farmers. The prices tend to be lower than the production costs, indicating the need for a different approach,” said Mariranyika.

    Tobacco Farmer Talk (TFT) WhatsApp group administrator Phineas Mukomberenwa announced an upcoming Kutsaga tour that will allow farmers to tour tobacco curing facilities and see grading, baling, tobacco presentation and the fundamentals of tobacco classification.

    “By integrating grading and classification in the tour, TFT aims to equip growers who are still harvesting and struggling with curing with the knowledge while also assisting those ready for the market. The objective is to ensure that tobacco is graded accurately and presented in a manner that secures the best possible prices at the tobacco auction floors,” said Mukomberenwa.

  • PMI to Support Female Empowerment

    PMI to Support Female Empowerment

    Image: Sanele Gobinduku/peopleimages.com

    Philip Morris International announced the launch of an extended partnership via its U.S. business to support female empowerment with a $5 million investment in the Women’s Business Development Council (WBDC), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to providing tools and resources to help women entrepreneurs thrive in business throughout Connecticut.

    Beginning January 2025, in coordination with the WBDC, PMI’s U.S. business will contribute $1 million per year over a five-year period toward the Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative to help remove barriers that prevent women from full participation in Connecticut’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

    “Philip Morris International is committed to making positive impact throughout Connecticut communities and beyond. Our partnership with WBDC and investment through the Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative enables us to better support Governor Ned Lamont’s vision of positioning our state as a catalyst for women and their families,” said Stacey Kennedy, president of the Americas region and CEO of PMI’s U.S. business, in a statement.

    Since 1997, the WBDC has educated and trained more than 18,900 clients in all of Connecticut’s 169 towns—helping women to launch, sustain and scale more than 14,170 businesses, create and maintain more than 31,400 jobs and access more than $57 million in capital.

    “This investment from PMI will enable us to continue the critical work we do to support economic independence through entrepreneurship for women in Connecticut,” said WBDC CEO Fran Pastore. “We are pleased that PMI has trusted us to use these funds to continue to help women access capital, education, and resources to support themselves and fuel employment within our state. Over the past few years, we have seen a 275 percent increase in the number of women who come to us seeking to launch or scale their business. Without the support of corporations in our community like PMI, this growth, and the growth we anticipate in the future, would not be possible.”

  • Heated, Oral Tobacco Output Jumps in Russia

    Heated, Oral Tobacco Output Jumps in Russia

    Photo: Delovoy Petersburg

    Cigarette manufacturers in Russia produced 182 billion cigarettes in 2023, reports CRPT, which operates the Honest Mark product labeling system. Accounting for 87.7 percent of domestic tobacco production, cigarette manufacturing was largely stable (up 1 percent) from the previous year.

    Production of heated tobacco products, by contrast, jumped 26 percent to 1 billion packs, claiming 10 percent of the Russian tobacco market in 2023. Output of oral tobacco products more than doubled to over 5.8 million. Production of cigarillos increased to 61.5 million packs in 2023 from 32 million in 2022.

    The only categories of tobacco products whose production decreased in 2022-2023 were cigars and smoking tobacco, according to CRPT. The production of cigars fell by 38 percent to 4.2 million packs, and smoking tobacco decreased by 8 percent to 1.3 million packs.

    Domestic tobacco companies manufactured 96.6 percent of the nicotine products on the Russian market in 2023.

    Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading international nicotine companies, such as British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands have sold their operations to domestic investors.

    The multinationals that remain are finding it increasingly difficulty to extract themselves from the market due to onerous government restrictions on such transactions (see, “A New Reality,” Tobacco Reporter, March 2024).

  • New Tobacco Control Measures in Russia

    New Tobacco Control Measures in Russia

    Photo: Kalyakan

    Russia has strengthened state control over the production and circulation of tobacco and nicotine-containing products, effective March 1, reports Mail.ru.

    The Federal Service for Control of Alcohol and Tobacco Markets, Rosalkogoltabakcontrol, will now monitor production and circulation of tobacco, suppressing illegal production and trafficking of products and monitoring compliance with licensing and mandatory requirements during production supply, purchase and transportation.

    Control activities include on-site inspections, test purchases and inspection visits.

    Effective March 1, manufacturers are required to have a license to produce tobacco. An electronic register of these licenses came into effect on Sept. 1, 2023.

  • UKVIA Seeks Clarity on Advertising Notice

    UKVIA Seeks Clarity on Advertising Notice

    Photo: New Africa

    The U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) is seeking clarification following the recent Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) enforcement notice on the prohibition of vaping ads on social media.

    The UKVIA is particularly concerned that “factual (nonpromotional) information” should only be made available to those who have “actively and specifically sought it out,” which would limit such content to social media accounts set to “private.”

    The industry group is especially worried that this means factual posts, such as repeating evidence-based statistics such as vaping is 95 percent less harmful than smoking, for its annual VApril Vape Awareness Month will now be deemed unlawful.

    “Around 40 percent of U.K. smokers wrongly believe that vaping is at least as harmful as, or even more harmful than, cigarettes, which suggests we need more evidence-based vaping facts on social media, not less,” the UKVIA wrote in a statement.

    One of the main aims of VApril is to use both paid and organic posts on LinkedIn, X and Facebook to give facts to smokers to help them make informed decisions over how they consume nicotine.

    The CAP says that after March 28, it will enforce restrictions under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, which prohibit “ads that have the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing electronic cigarette products” from being shown in most social media.

    The Enforcement Notice says: “Electronic cigarette ads are prohibited in any online media where content is shared to users who have not specifically sought it out.

    “This means paid-for display ads in all online space are prohibited, but it also means that regular, non-paid-for posts and content in social media, which might get shared by an algorithm to users, are prohibited too.”

    The Advertising Standards Authority will hold a webinar on March 21 where the rules on social media vape ads will be explained.

  • U.S. Trade Commission to Probe ALD and Stiiizy

    U.S. Trade Commission to Probe ALD and Stiiizy

    Photo: New Africa

    The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will investigate oil vaporizing devices, components and products manufactured and sold by ALD Group and Stiiizy in response to patent violation complaints filed by Pax Labs.

    Pax Lab has asked the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order.

    In a note on its website, the ITC stressed that is has not yet made any decision on the merits of Pax Lab’s complaint. The ITC’s chief administrative law judge will now assign the case to one of the ITC’s administrative law judges, who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing. That judge will make an initial determination as to whether there is a violation of section 337 of the Tariff Act; that initial determination is subject to review by the Commission.

    The ITC said it will make a final determination in the investigation at the earliest practicable time. Within 45 days after institution of the investigation, the ITC will set a target date for completing the investigation. ITC remedial orders in section 337 cases are effective when issued and become final 60 days after issuance unless disapproved for policy reasons by the U.S. Trade Representative within that 60-day period.

  • PMI Sued Over Zyn

    PMI Sued Over Zyn

    Photo: PMI

    In the first major legal challenge to oral nicotine pouches, a consumer has sued Philip Morris International over its popular Zyn brand, saying the product is addictive and harmful to young people, reports BNN Bloomberg.

    The plaintiff, Bailey Wolters, alleges addiction and dental issues as a result of his Zyn use. The lawsuit says that the pouches deliver more nicotine than cigarettes, and that PMI benefits from “Zynfluencers” who promote the brand on social media.

    The suit, which is seeking class-action status, also names as a defendant Swedish Match, which made the pouches before PMI bought it for $16 billion in 2022.

    According to the plaintiff, the companies failed to warn consumers about the risk of addiction and other harmful effects like cognitive issues, cardiovascular injuries, gastrointestinal problems and gum disease.

    PMI insists its pouches are intended only for existing users of nicotine products.

    The case was brought by Schlesinger Law Offices, whose initial lawsuit against Juul Labs investors including Altria Group expanded into thousands of legal actions and led to Altria’s eventual settlement of $235 million.

  • FDA Urged to Follow the Science

    FDA Urged to Follow the Science

    Photo: Pixel-Shot

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) should open the marketplace for electronic nicotine delivery systems to products with varied characteristics so that those interested in alternative nicotine products can access them, according to R Street resident senior fellow Jeffrey Smith.

    In a recently published analysis, Smith critiques the FDA’s disregard for the current research on ENDS, diving into new data that he says represents a “tectonic-shift in the academic medicine community” regarding the safety of ENDS for smoking cessation. 

    ”As evidence grows for the utility of ENDS and other potentially life-saving alternative products, the CTP continues to limit Americans’ access to these products,” writes Smith.

    “Though the CTP has received millions of applications for ENDS products, it has only allowed a few to be marketed legally in the United States. Of those that have received marketing clearance, only older closed systems have been approved—with tobacco as the only permitted flavor.”

    Arguing that a diverse range of ENDS products available to those who smoke and want to quit is critical to reducing the health burdens associated with smoking, Smith urges the CTP to revise its processes and procedures, and allow more cigarette alternatives on the market. Continued delay by the CTP, he says, will only lead to more unnecessary deaths and disease in the United States.

  • Hong Kong to Push Pack Price Above HKD90

    Hong Kong to Push Pack Price Above HKD90

    Photo: Heorshe

    Hong Kong will hike the duty on cigarettes by HKD0.80 ($0.10) per stick, pushing the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes to HKD94, reports The Standard. The duty on other tobacco products will be increased by the same proportion.

    Currently, a pack of cigarettes costs HKD78 after a 25.8 percent increase last year.

    Finance Minister Paul Chan Mo-po expects the proportion of tobacco duty in the retail price of cigarettes to rise to about 70 percent, gradually approaching the 75 percent level recommended by the World Health Organization.

    Chan believes this will provide the public with a greater incentive to quit smoking. He said the government will step up enforcement against illicit cigarette trading and strengthen smoking cessation services, publicity and education.

    The Coalition on Tobacco Affairs expressed regret over the government’s decision to increase tobacco taxes without disclosing how last year’s price hike impacted the prevalence of smoking.

    The coalition said the prior-year increase had exacerbated illicit cigarette activities with customs seizing a record-high 650 million cigarettes in 2023.

    “This indicates how syndicates take advantage of Hong Kong’s high tobacco tax policy to control the sale of illicit cigarettes with the aim to provide funding to other criminal activities,” the coalition said in a statement.

  • Ireland Prepares Vape Tax

    Ireland Prepares Vape Tax

    Image: Zerbor

    The government of Ireland is working to introduce a tax on e-cigarettes in 2025, reports The Irish Times.

    Finance Minister Michael McGrath confirmed that his department had started work with the revenue department to announce the tax in the next budget and introduce it next year.

    McGrath cited the vaping industry’s “insidious” targeting of e-cigarettes toward young people as justification for the tax.

    “There’s no doubt, but it is a deliberate policy,” he was quoted as saying. “In my mind, what is happening when you see all the attractive flavors and names, it’s definitely targeting young people and very successfully.”

    While acknowledging that e-cigarettes are helping some smokers quit more harmful combustible cigarettes, McGrath also noted that there are many unknowns about the long-term effects of e-cigarettes.

    He said it was important for the Department of Finance’s proposed tax to align with policies of other departments around e-cigarettes and vapes, such as the Department of Health and the Department of Environment.