Tag: colombia

RELX Launches New E-cigarettes in Colombia

Photo: RELX International
RELX International will launch its next-generation e-cigarettes, the Infinity and Essential, in Colombia this month. The Infinity features RELX International’s latest innovations in product design, vapor quality, mobility and overall user experience. The Essential allows users to experience key elements of the Infinity’s design at a more accessible price point.
According to RELX, Infinity and Essential feature a full flavor and smooth puff due to the independently developed Super Smooth Performance technology. With more than a year dedicated to the design process, this data-driven technology was developed by defining five key elements that constitute the perfect puff. This technology was perfected through 76 sensory tests and repeated refinements of the parameters measuring RELX Super Smooth Performance.
The design of the Infinity device was optimized more than 40 times, and more than 12,000 pods were tested to ensure leak resistance and high-quality standards. Patent applications have been submitted for more than 50 innovations used in the device, including its leak-resistant design, e-liquid pods and wireless charging case. In March 2020, the Infinity was awarded the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2020.
Our goal is to help smokers who cannot or do not want to quit to transition to a better alternative with confidence.
Bing Du, CEO, RELX International
“I’m proud of the entire RELX global team for creating this beautifully designed Infinity device with superior technology and with a dedication to innovation that we are now known for worldwide,” said RELX International CEO Bing Du in a statement. “Ultimately our goal is to help current smokers who cannot or do not want to quit to transition to a better alternative with confidence. The more budget-friendly Essential device also allows users to experience RELX’s premium quality features.”
March 30, 2021
Blueprint for Exit

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Following the exit of two leading cigarette manufacturers, Colombian tobacco farmers had to find alternative livelihoods overnight. Their experience offers lessons for growers elsewhere.
By Stefanie Rossel
From smallholder tobacco farming to organized large-scale tobacco cultivation to alternative crops in a short time—Colombia’s leaf tobacco sector has experienced a remarkable development in the past 16 years. Its most recent change toward farmer livelihoods independent of tobacco might become a blueprint for other leaf origins facing declining demand for tobacco.
The takeover of Colombia’s domestic tobacco industry by multinationals was a turning point for the country’s leaf sector. Philip Morris International (PMI) acquired Coltabaco in 2005, and British American Tobacco (BAT) bought Protabaco in 2011.
“The technological package that had been implemented by the national companies before was very different from the one brought by the multinationals, and this meant radical adaptations for growers,” explains Heliodoro Campos Castillo, founder and general secretary of the National Tobacco Fund in Colombia (Fedetabaco).
“To give some examples, tobacco farming in Colombia, like almost everywhere in the world, has always been a family business, with everyone from granddads to youngsters participating actively. With multinationals’ child labor policies, this was ended and translated into a reduction in areas cultivated. Other measures that brought about a hard adaptation for growers were the security procedures that did not exist before. Growers accepted them as part of the evolution needed in the sector to improve agricultural practices and did their best to adapt to them. However, these were abrupt changes with very little time for implementation, and the sector suffered with them.”
Years before the multinationals entered the market, Fedetabaco initiated an investment package of $64 million in Colombia’s tobacco sector, which was co-financed by municipalities, the tobacco industry and institutions and stretched over almost 25 years.
“Fedetabaco understood the challenges ahead and went beyond the improvements in production to better growers’ livelihoods through different sustainable programs, such as rainfall water collection and reservoirs, housing projects, improvement of curing methods through modernization and, most importantly, promoting sustainability through diversification to grant growers food security and endow them with resources to cover their basic consumption needs,” says Campos Castillo.
“The improvement of the production system as a whole was an important factor to contribute to this self-sufficient strategy. We are working with the International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA) to make sure the example of Colombia will help growers in other parts of the world.”

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Local crop alternatives
Tobacco cultivation in Colombia dates to the 18th century, but the plant plays a minor role in the country’s agriculture. According to the World Health Organization, only 0.03 percent of Colombia’s agricultural land was devoted to tobacco cultivation in 2014. The area used for tobacco cultivation has decreased drastically in the past decade, from 9,589 ha in 2011 to 3,550 ha in 2019, notes Fedetabaco. In line with global trends, annual cigarette consumption in the country declined from 18.4 billion units a year in 2010 to 12.2 billion pieces in 2019, according to USDA estimates. With a market share of 51.4 percent in 2019, PMI contract-purchased about half of the domestic leaf tobacco crop, which corresponded to a planted area of 1,850 ha per year, from 2,300 farmers. BAT, which held the remaining 48.6 percent of the market in 2019, bought tobacco grown on 1,300 ha.
However, PMI closed its manufacturing operations in Colombia in 2019, citing a rise in contraband and a global trend away from tobacco products. One year later, BAT followed suit.

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The two companies’ sudden withdrawal left farmers with little time to find viable alternative crops. It directly affected around 2,000 families and 9,000 people whose main source of income was tobacco, says Campos Castillo.
“Fedetabaco immediately took action to try to mitigate this negative impact in these people’s livelihoods,” he says. “Working closely with the ministry of agriculture and all the sector’s national organizations and institutions, we were able to build up a strategic reconversion program based on a thorough analysis of the situation.
“As the priority line of action, we took into account the experience and expertise of the farmers and the important contribution their knowledge could bring to the program as well as the ecological and agricultural characteristics to make sure we will act on the right location with the right crop with minimum waste.
“This program includes maize, yuca and other crops well known by farmers. The investment will cover 3,500 hectares, and its estimated cost is around $10 million. So far, as a shock plan, we have been able to advance, in coordination with the ministry of agriculture, $900,000 to provide seeds and $400,000 to plant maize, but we reached out to ITGA because this will only cover a very small part of the problem.”

Colombia continues to cultivate limited amounts of cigar tobacco for domestic consumption and exports.
Cannabis pilot
To help their farmers find alternative crops after their exit, PMI and BAT commissioned studies from two national nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While Proterritorio finished its study last year, the Fundes research will be concluded this May. “We hope [the results] will add value to solve the problem,” says Campos Castillo. “Nevertheless, growers feel confident in the program developed by Fedetabaco with the ministry of agriculture, mainly because it has identified viable crops well known by them, such as yuca, Tahiti lemon and maize. We tend to think that there is a similar line of strategy between what we are proposing from Fedetabaco and the ministry of agriculture and the NGOs hired by the companies, but we will have to wait and see when the figures are out.”
Of the 18 departments that historically grew tobacco, only two will continue. One of them, in Colombia’s north, produces a dark cigar tobacco exclusively for export. The other, in Santander, cultivates Criollo, a tobacco used primarily for domestic cigars.
Cannabis, too, could become an alternative for tobacco growers. Colombia legalized the growth, sale and smoking of medicinal cannabis in 2015. After Coltobaco’s closure, Fedetabaco immediately started exploring the potential of cannabis for medicinal, nonpsychoactive purposes. “We are carefully handling this pilot project and expect to have the result of the analysis in terms of cost of production, productivity and quality by the end of 2021.” It is an exciting project because cannabis is cultivated in small areas of around 1,000 square meters to 2,000 square meters—a scale that is familiar to smallholder tobacco farmers. What’s more, the soil and weather conditions in the target regions appear to be suitable for cannabis cultivation.
Campos Castillo insists that his organization has not stopped working with the government trying to find solutions for tobacco farmers since the departure of PMI and BAT. “The government of Colombia cannot commit to granting the total amount of the funding. Tobacco is a small agriculture share in Colombia, and investment is needed in other rural commodities. Fedetabaco is experienced and has been developing programs for more than 30 years in rural areas in Colombia, so a holistic approach would be to gather all the resources available from companies, [the] government, institutions and our global platform, ITGA, all working together with a single purpose to safeguard the livelihood of these 2,000 families. We remain hopeful that this will happen in the near future.”
The author would like to thank Mercedes Vazquez for her assistance with this article.
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.

March 1, 2021
Tax link questioned
Claims by the tobacco industry of a positive association between price/tax changes in respect of tobacco products and the illegal trade in those products are unsubstantiated, according to an article by Guillermo Paraje, PhD for Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press.
An abstract of the piece, Illicit Cigarette Trade in Five South American Countries: A Gap Analysis for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru, concludes that using simple statistical methods, ‘it is possible to assess the trend in tobacco illicit trend over time to better inform policy-makers’. ‘Getting reliable and regular population consumption surveys can also help to track tobacco illicit trade,’ the conclusion states. ‘Claims by tobacco industry of a positive association between price/tax changes and illicit trade are unsubstantiated.’
Under the heading Implications, the abstract says, in part, that the evolution of ‘cigarette illicit trade in five Latin American countries show different trajectories, not in line with tobacco industry estimates, which highlight the importance of producing solid, independent estimates’.
‘There are inexpensive methodologies that can provide estimates of the evolution of the relative importance of illicit trade and can be used to inform policy-makers.’
May 16, 2018
Turning swords into tobacco
Coltabaco S.A.S., Colombia’s biggest tobacco company, is one of hundreds of Colombian businesses that are employing former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in an effort to integrate them into the society against which they previously fought, according to a story by John Otis for Bloomberg News.
When Colombia’s government signed a peace treaty with FARC last fall, it meant more than an end to a 52-year conflict that had left an estimated 220,000 people dead and forced more than five million civilians from their homes. It also meant 7,000 guerrillas would have a chance to disarm and enter the workforce.
Miguel Suárez, a top official at the Reincorporation and Normalization Agency, the government body that receives newly demobilized fighters, was quoted as saying that it was the responsibility of all Colombians to generate opportunities and make the integration policy work.
Coltabaco has spent $15 million on minimarkets and tobacco plantations that employ former guerrillas as well as members of the paramilitary death squads that were the rebels’ archenemies.
“We have to co-operate so that these people don’t return to a life of crime,” says Humberto Mora, Coltabaco’s vice president.
“We are not doing this simply out of altruism. This is also a form of self-protection.
Otis’ story is at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-20/what-do-you-do-when-guerrilla-is-the-only-thing-on-your-r-sum.
June 21, 2017