The Coesia Group, which includes G.D, Sasib and Flexlink, said today it had completed the acquisition of the Molins Instrumentation and Tobacco Machinery business.
The acquisition was foreshadowed on June 8.
‘The Instrumentation and Tobacco Machinery division, with 2016 revenues of approximately GB£40 million, is a global player in the design, development and manufacturing of secondary tobacco processing machinery, under the brand name Molins, as well as a leading player in process and quality control instruments and analytical smoke constituent capture machinery, under the brand name Cerulean,’ Coesia said in a press note.
“With the acquisition of Molins and Cerulean, Coesia will strengthen its leadership in the tobacco machinery industry and enhance its portfolio and product offering in the packaging and instrumentation markets” Angelos Papadimitriou, the Coesia Group’s CEO was quoted as saying.
‘Coesia is a group of innovation-based industrial and packaging solutions companies operating globally, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, fully owned by Isabella Seràgnoli,’ the note said. ‘The Group has 89 operating units (52 of which with production facilities) in 32 countries, a turnover in 2016 of €1,457 million and over 6,000 employees.’
Japan Tobacco International on Friday launched PLOOM TECH in Switzerland, the first launch of its tobacco vapor product outside Japan.
In a press note issued on its website, JTI said PLOOM TECH would be available nationwide in more than 1,500 stores.
It said also that the newly-launched tobacco-vapor product was the first of its kind to be sold in Switzerland. ‘With its state of the art technology, PLOOM TECH enables consumers to enjoy tobacco with “no smoke, smoke smell or ash” by indirectly heating tobacco through a vapor,’ the note said.
“We are very excited to be the first country outside Japan to introduce PLOOM TECH,” John Aurlund, JTI’s Switzerland general manager, was quoted as saying. “It is quite fitting that a technologically advanced product like PLOOM TECH begins its international adventure here in Switzerland, a country renowned for quality, precision and innovation.”
JTI said that PLOOM TECH created a tobacco-enriched vapor using a hybrid technology that heated a non-nicotine liquid that was passed through a capsule containing granulated tobacco. ‘In doing so, the tobacco is heated at around 30 degrees Celsius,’ the note said. ‘No combustion is created throughout the process and recent studies show an approximately 99 percent reduction in levels of measured constituents compared to cigarette smoke. This means that PLOOM TECH has strong potential to be a reduced risk product, while retaining all the joys and pleasures of tobacco including its authentic flavor.’
“The technology behind PLOOM TECH provides a real potential to reduce the health risks compared to smoking, while maintaining a true tobacco taste,” said Yasuhiro Nakajima, JTI’s vice president of Emerging Products. “Its innovative technology combines the best of both tobacco and e-cigarettes, adding an entirely new concept to our ever-growing portfolio in emerging products. We look forward to introducing it to Europe, one of the largest vaping markets in the world.”
PLOOM TECH is said to create no mess and to require no cleaning. ‘Other unique attributes include the ability to use the device over several separate occasions without having to dispose of the tobacco capsule,’ the note said. ‘It is also exceptionally light and comes with a long-lasting battery which runs through an entire refill pack before recharging is required.
‘PLOOM TECH is available across Switzerland in Coop Pronto and in other selected Coop and Kiosk stores. It comes in a combo kit, containing the device and a refill pack of Winston tobacco capsules, at a total price of CHF25. A refill pack, available in “balanced” or “cool purple”, sells at CHF7.50.’
Philip Morris International said today that it was planning to invest about €490 million in transforming its cigarette production factory in Otopeni, near Bucharest, Romania, into a high-tech facility for manufacturing HEETS, the tobacco units used with the electronic tobacco heating device IQOS.
‘The conversion of the factory into a HEETS production facility has already commenced and is expected to be completed and fully operational by 2020, the company said in a note posted on its website.
‘The investment will create about 300 additional jobs for highly-skilled employees at the Romanian facility, which currently employs approximately 600 people.’
Romania will join a growing list of countries where PMI manufactures heated tobacco units for IQOS.
‘Earlier this month, PMI announced plans to install two new high-tech production lines in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to produce HEETS,’ the note said.
‘In June, PMI announced it would expand capacity at the company’s heated tobacco unit manufacturing facility in Bologna, Italy and also announced plans to build a new facility for HEETS in Dresden, Germany. In addition, PMI will also convert its cigarette factories in Greece and Russia and by the end of 2018, PMI plans to have a total annual installed capacity of approximately 100 billion heated tobacco units.’
IQOS and HEETS have been available in Bucharest since November 2015 and in 16 cities throughout Romania from the beginning of this year.
IQOS is said to be available in key cities in more than 27 markets and is expected to be available in 30-35 markets, either key cities or nationwide, by the end of 2017, as capacity permits.
“Our investment in Romania further demonstrates our commitment to a future in which smoke-free products ultimately replace cigarettes,” said André Calantzopoulos, PMI’s CEO. “We are encouraged by the 2.9 million smokers around the world who have already given up smoking and switched to IQOS. We expect this momentum to continue and the conversion of the Romanian facility will help us to meet the growing demand from adult smokers for better alternatives to cigarettes.”
IQOS is one of what PMI refers to as four scientifically substantiated smoke-free product platforms that it is developing ‘to address adult smoker demand for better alternatives to cigarettes’.
‘Since 2008, PMI has hired more than 400 scientists and experts and invested over US$3 billion in research, product development and scientific substantiation for smoke-free products,’ the note said. ‘The company openly shares its scientific methodologies and findings for independent third-party review and verification, and has published its research in over 200 articles and book chapters since 2011. Results of scientific research conducted by PMI to date indicate that IQOS is likely to reduce the risk of harm compared to cigarette smoking, and is a better choice for those who would otherwise continue to smoke.’
The European Commission has been asked what it is doing to fight ‘bulk tobacco inflows into the European Union’.
In a preamble to their question, which the Commission will answer in writing, the Italian MEP, Fulvio Martusciello, and the Slovenian MEP, Patricija Šulin, said the fight against the illegal tobacco trade centered largely on manufactured cigarettes.
However, according to a study carried out by the Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Transcrime in December 2016, the illegal trade in bulk tobacco, or the sale of unbranded cut tobacco outside legitimate channels, had been increasing.
More than €870 million per year was lost in eight EU member states alone, a considerable proportion because of inflows from outside the EU, mainly from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The illegal tobacco trade was in breach of the competition laws laid down in Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, but bulk tobacco had never been cited as a growing problem.
‘In the light of the above information, what is the Commission doing to fight bulk tobacco inflows into the European Union?’ they asked.
The registration websites for CORESTA’s 2017 Joint Study Group meetings are both open, according to a note from the organization’s secretariat.
The Smoke Science and Product Technology (SSPT2017) meeting is due to be held at Kitzbühel, Austria, on October 8-12.
The SSPT2017 website is at www.sspt2017.org, where the ‘early registration’ deadline is August 1.
Meanwhile, the Agronomy & Leaf Integrity and Phytopathology & Genetics meeting (AP2017) is scheduled to be held at Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil, on October 22-26.
The AP2017 website is at www.corestabrazil.com, where the ‘early registration’ deadline is July 31.
HTMS revamps a venerable tobacco cutter to meet modern-day requirements.
By Stefanie Rossel
Usually, money is the main reason behind the decision to breathe new life into older tobacco equipment. Tobacco companies that have their machinery revamped do so because they will get an up-to-date version of their reliable workhorses without having to invest in significantly more expensive new equipment. In turn, they accept that they may not have the latest technologies associated with new machinery at their disposal—technologies that might be more efficient than even an “as new” rebuild.
But what if equipment developed way back in the past is simply more robust and flexible than anything currently available? In that case, rebuilding may be a sensible choice. On behalf of a leading manufacturer of large machine-made cigars, Hampshire Tobacco Machinery Services (HTMS) of the United Kingdom recently transformed a Molins MK1 cutting machine, comprising five units originally built as a tobacco stems cutter, into a cutter that is now also capable of cutting a range of tobacco leaf—uncased, semi-cased or fully cased—in compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. The development extended to cover anything from heavily cased cigar blends to the currently much-favored shisha tobaccos.
Testifying to the quality of Molins’ original cutters, HTMS used a variety of MK1 donor machines built as early as 1934 and introduced new features. “The old MK1 cutter can cut heavily cased tobacco much better than modern-day horizontal rotary axis cutters,” says Ron Woodthorpe, managing director of HTMS. “Besides, it also has a more robust structure and a compact design. We have used all the advantages of the MK1 and MK4 to build a cutting machine to meet today’s demands for FDA-compliant cigar production.”
HTMS replaced the original epicycle gearbox, which worked with a five-blade rotating vertical cutting head, with a compound gearbox and introduced a new feature: a pneumatically controlled weight box conversion. Using a dependable, adjustable design by supplying pneumatic pressure to create a force to the top band via the mechanics of the existing link arms onto the tobacco, it forms a solid “cheese” for the final cutting of threshed tobacco products at 22 percent moisture. Outside of the cigar range, the MK1 modifications are most suitable to cover the RYO and MYO sectors, with the added attraction of cutting for shisha tobacco.
By using a selected change gear, the range of cutting widths has been significantly extended. The rebuilt cutter is able to provide extra-coarse cuts, ranging from 5 cuts per inch (cpi) for specialized products to 180 cpi. Flexibility of the cutter has been further enhanced. The redesigned gearbox allows a simple change. It can even be extended to 220 cpi by adding the change part of the MK4 eight-blade knife head. New configurations are available to extent capacity for all products, including lamina conditioned leaf blend, up to 2 tons per hour.
Using only four blades of the knife head to provide 5 cpi, the revised MK1 can theoretically apply 4 cpi, producing a particularly coarse cut as a possible substitute for threshed leaf blends.
“The range of tobacco cuts on this machine is structured to give options for a ‘cut blend’ for leaf, rather than threshed leaf for cigars,” says Woodthorpe. “This covers the cutting of 5 cpi to 24 cpi to substitute for threshed leaf particle. This is understood to meet the requirement of the FDA and the user to create a platform of accuracy and performance for the composition of a cut blend.
“The application can vary relating to width of cut and volume, this coming into a blended format to meet the design of the favored blend, under the known value of substances that are predetermined within the proposed leaf blend, which means that you can identify the tar, nicotine and sugar in the tobacco before it is cut, to give the analysis of the volumetric format before it is actually blended.
“This as an essential prerequisite in times of comprehensive legislation of tobacco products.”
By being able to cut known conditions of leaf for cigars, manufacturing will allows the processing of reclaiming of about 10 percent of tobacco use as addback on line production.
The cutter has been comprehensively automated. The constant throughput of tobacco is controlled electronically by an incoming feed system and a sensor-based, tobacco-level detection system. Feed rate and conditions for compression of the cheese are also constantly checked.
The sticky stuff
The original MK1 was designed principally for dry-stone knife sharpening. At the time, there was little need for cutting heavily cased tobaccos, which is a far more demanding task. Casing requires that the tobacco be soaked in or sprayed with a “sauce” that may contain sugar, molasses, licorice, rum or whiskey, along with various flavorings, natural or otherwise. Heavily cased tobaccos can contain up to 40 percent nontobacco ingredients and become very sticky, which makes the cutting process more complex and also adds to contamination of the cutting equipment. This is especially true for the increasingly popular water pipe tobacco.
To meet the production requirements of this product, HTMS equipped the MK1 cutter with a wet-stone application capable of cutting a variety of flavored tobaccos that carry molasses or sticky fruit flavors, as well as the traditional shisha tobaccos. To keep the machine clean between blend changes or after the processing of heavily cased tobaccos, the company has built in a “wash down” hose facility.
Woodthorpe says that his company’s modification covers almost 99 percent of MK1 cutting machines produced by Molins. Built to the latest European safety standards, the new MK1 cutter, complete with infeed conveyor, comes with a one-year warranty—a remarkable achievement for a technology developed more than 80 years ago. “With our modified cutter, we are able to offer high flexibility in a low-cost machine,” says Woodthorpe.
British American Tobacco has invested more than $1.5 billion dollars during the past six years to develop and commercialize alternative and potentially less-risky products, according to a press note issued yesterday by Imperial Tobacco Canada (ITCAN).
‘This has been a strategic priority for the group for many years’, the note said.
‘Through the creation of inspiring products, we can drive change.
‘At the heart of this is our commitment and desire to reduce the health impact of smoking.’
The note was issued ahead of a press conference that is due to be held in Vancouver, Canada, on July 6, attended by BAT’s managing director of Next Generation Products, Kingsley Wheaton, who is based in London, UK.
Wheaton will be accompanied by ITCAN’s president and CEO, Jorge Araya, and its head of external and corporate affairs, Eric Gagnon.
According to the note, Araya and Gagnon will be ‘open to discuss Canada’s lack of a cohesive regulatory framework for next generation products and the challenges created by this regulatory environment’.
Japan Tobacco Inc said yesterday it hoped to catch up with Philip Morris International in respect of smokeless tobacco by expanding the number of smoke-free restaurants and public places that allowed its vaping product to be used, according to a story by Taiga Uranaka for Reuters.
Tobacco firms see Japan as a test ground for alternative vaping products because the country’s pharmaceutical regulations ban the nicotine e-liquids used with electronic cigarettes.
While PMI’s heated-tobacco product IQOS is already enjoying strong demand in Japan, JT’s launch of its Ploom Tech product has run into delays due to production shortages.
But JT was due to start selling Ploom Tech at its flagship shops today and at 100 tobacco stores in Tokyo on July 10. The company says it plans to sell the product nation-wide during the first half of the next year.
The company test-launched the product in Fukuoka in March last year and at its online shop, but it had to suspend sales after demand overwhelmed supply. It had apparently sold 250,000 Ploom Tech devices by the end of last year.
Unlike Philip Morris’s IQOS, Ploom Tech does not directly heat tobacco leaves. Instead, the battery-powered device generates vapor that goes through a capsule packed with tobacco leaves.
Japan Tobacco said the mechanism produced less smell than heated tobacco products produced, and the company hopes this will be a strong differentiating factor against its rivals’ products.
Philip Morris International said yesterday it planned to invest about €500 million of additional funds in expanding capacity at its smoke-free product manufacturing facility at Crespellano, Bologna, Italy.
The facility at Crespellano was PMI’s first dedicated manufacturing facility for large-scale production of HEETS, the tobacco units used with the electronic tobacco heating device IQOS.
Completed in September 2016, the facility currently employed more than 600 people with a high level of technical expertise in areas such as mechanical engineering, electronics and chemistry, PMI said in a note posted on its website.
The expansion, which was expected to be completed by the end of 2018, formed part of the company’s plans to have a total annual installed capacity of about 100 billion heated tobacco units by the end of next year.
“Last week, we announced our second greenfield facility in Dresden [Germany],” Frederic de Wilde, president of PMI’s EU region, was quoted as saying. “The expansion of our first one, in Crespellano, shows the momentum of our efforts to turn PMI’s vision for a smoke-free future into a reality as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Michele Cattoni, PMI’s vice president of Technology & Operations RRPs, said the opening of the Crespellano plant had represented a historic milestone in PMI’s commitment to replace cigarettes with better alternatives to the benefit of smokers, public health and society at large. “We are now rapidly expanding our capacity to manufacture smoke-free products in order to meet growing demand from adult smokers,” she said.
‘IQOS and HEETS were first made available for adult smokers in Milan in November 2014,’ the PMI note said. ‘IQOS is currently available nationwide in Italy, and in key cities or nationwide in more than 25 markets around the world. More than two million people have already given up smoking and switched to IQOS.
‘The expansion of the Bologna facility follows the announcement earlier this month that PMI will invest approximately US$320 million in a HEETS production facility in Dresden, Germany, adding to the previously announced investments in the conversion of cigarette manufacturing facilities in Greece, Romania and Russia to HEETS production.
‘IQOS is one of four scientifically substantiated smoke-free product platforms that PMI is developing to address adult smoker demand for better alternatives to cigarettes. Since 2008, PMI has hired more than 400 scientists and experts and invested over US$3 billion in research, product development and scientific substantiation for smoke-free products. The company openly shares its scientific methodologies and findings for independent third-party review and verification, and has published its research in over 200 articles and book chapters since 2011. Results of scientific research conducted by PMI to date indicate that switching completely to IQOS is likely to reduce the risk of harm compared to cigarette smoking, and is a better choice for those who would otherwise continue to smoke.’
British American Tobacco’s South Korea-based unit plans to start selling glo tobacco-heating devices in August, according to a story in The Korea Herald, citing the Yonhap News Agency.
BAT Korea said on Tuesday that it was joining the race for the burgeoning heated-tobacco-device market. The previous day, it had opened a teaser website for glo.
Earlier this month, the company completed the expansion of its production facility in Sacheon, 437 km southeast of Seoul, which will produce Neostiks, the consumable item of the glo system.
Neostiks are heated by the glo device to create a vapor that delivers to the consumer an experience that is said to be similar to that of smoking a cigarette.
BAT’s glo was first launched in December in Sendai, Japan, where its regional market share was said to have reached more than seven percent within six months of its debut.
Philip Morris launched its iQOS heated-tobacco device nationwide in South Korea earlier this month.
And KT&G, the country’s leading tobacco manufacturer, is planning to launch a heat-not-burn device, though the story did not say when.
