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Tag: German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products

  • German Cigarette Sales at Historic Low

    German Cigarette Sales at Historic Low

    Photo: Tupungato

    Cigarette sales in Germany fell 8.3 percent to 65.8 billion units in 2022, according to tobacco tax stamp figures published by the Federal Statistical Office on Feb. 8.

    German cigarette volumes have been declining steadily for years. In 2012, smokers bought 82.4 billion cigarettes. As a result of tobacco tax increases and inflation-related adjustments, a pack of 20 premium cigarettes became more than 5 percent expensive in both 2022 and 2023—which is still below the average rate of inflation in those years.

    In response to the price hikes, some smokers have switched to fine-cut tobacco, which is taxed at lower rates. Sales of roll-your-own and make-your-own cigarettes remained stable in 2022 at 25,080 tons.

    Sales of cigars and cigarillos declined 8.9 percent compared to the previous year. The pipe tobacco tax category, which in 2021 still included classic pipe tobacco, water pipe tobacco and tobacco heaters, now only reflects sales of classic pipe tobacco, which reached 324.5 tons in 2022. The volume for water pipe tobacco was 962.6 tons.

    The share of untaxed cigarette sales in Germany declined from 19.1 percent in 2019 to 17.3 percent in 2022, likely as a result of coronavirus-related travel restrictions. According to the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products (BVTE), this means that lower legal cigarette sales were not fully offset by sales of products purchased abroad or on the black market.

    In July 2022, Germany started taxing e-liquids at a rate of €0.16 ($0.17) per milliliter. The government taxed 226,018 liters that year, earning €42.6 million from the segment. The impact of the tax increases will become visible only after the old, untaxed stocks may no longer be sold after Feb. 13.

    By 2026, Germany’s Ministry of Finance expects e-cigarettes to generate revenues of €1 billion, a figure that the BVTE in a statement described as unrealistic.

    Despite the tax increase, the federal government collected €14.23 billion in tobacco taxes in 2022, 3.4 less than in 2021.

  • German Trade Group Blasts Call for Vape Ban

    German Trade Group Blasts Call for Vape Ban

    Jan Muecke
    (Photo: German Association of the Tobacco Industry and Novel Products)

    Recent calls to ban e-cigarettes lack a scientific basis, according to the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and Novel Products (BVTE).

    In a recent interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Manne Lucha, minister of social affairs, health and integration for Baden-Württemberg, said that e-cigarettes should be treated the same as combustible cigarettes and that flavored vapor products should be banned.

    “It is a scientific consensus that the intake of harmful substances when vaping e-cigarettes is much lower than when smoking tobacco. With his ‘post-factual’ statements, the minister is causing consumer uncertainty with counterproductive consequences for health policy,” said BVTE CEO Jan Muecke in a statement.

    Muecke cited a 2020 statement by the German Cancer Research Center, which acknowledged that a complete switch from smoking to vaping reduces the consumer’s exposure to harmful substances. He also quoted Public Health England’s finding that e-cigarettes are at least 95 percent less harmful than smoking.

    According to the BVTE, e-cigarettes are the most frequently used smoking-cessation tool in Germany, ahead of less effective methods such as medical nicotine replacement products. The wide choice of flavored liquids, meanwhile, is a significant factor for adult smokers to switch to vaping, the organization wrote.

    “Instead of fueling fears with false claims and misguided demands for bans, e-cigarettes should finally be promoted in Germany as an opportunity to minimize risks for smokers,” Muecke said.

  • Trade Group: Germans Smoking Less

    Trade Group: Germans Smoking Less

    Photo: Rene Van Den Berg | Dreamstime.com

    Contrary to what the recently conducted German Survey on Smoking Behavior (DEBRA) suggests, Germans are smoking less, writes the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products (BVTE) on its website, citing figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSE).

    According to the FSE, sales of taxed cigarettes will decline in 2022 for the fourth year in a row, falling well below the 70 billion unit threshold for the first time.

    “People are smoking less and less in Germany. That is a fact that cannot be disputed,” says Jan Muecke, chief executive of the BVTE. “If more smoked, we would have to see that in the sales statistics. The opposite is the case.”

    Conducted at the University of Duesseldorf, the DEBRA found that the proportion of smokers in the total population increased from 25.4 percent in 2020 to 37.6 percent in July 2022. Among underage tobacco users, the prevalence had even almost doubled within one year, showing an increase from 8.7 percent in 2020 to 15.9 percent in 2022. According to the DEBRA, several million adults and around 200,000 minors have (re)started smoking.

    The BVTE noted that such a significant increase in smoking prevalence should have been reflected in government sales statistics, even if the new smokers were only occasional users.

    However, fewer cigarettes have been sold in Germany every year since 2019. From 2019 to 2021, cigarette sales fell by 3.6 percent to 71.7 billion units. This trend continued in 2022. The FSE reported tax stamp purchases for 60.7 billion units from January 2022 to November 2022. This means that 8 percent fewer cigarettes were produced for the German market than in the same period of the previous year.

    For 2022 as a whole, the agency expects sales of around 67 billion units.

    “People are smoking less and less in Germany. If more smoked, we would have to see that in the sales statistics. The opposite is the case.”

    Jan Muecke, chief executive, BVTE

    According to the BVTE, the discrepancy between official sales statistics and the DEBRA data points to methodological weaknesses in the survey. For example, the alleged increase in the proportion of underage consumers is based on a sample of only about 50 young people—apparently including eight people who reported smoking. Based on this data, says the BVTE, any estimate of smoking prevalence is highly uncertain.

    Muecke lamented the fact that the dubious DEBRA results were used to justify misguided demands for regulation. “Tobacco is fully regulated,” he said. “Adult smokers in Germany already feel unduly patronized and are not reached even with ever new bans and restrictions.”

    At the same time, German policy fails to expand the range of new alternative products for smokers and to create more opportunities and greater acceptance for potentially risk-reduced nicotine consumption, according to the BVTE.

    For example, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture is delaying the regulation of tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which are still not available to smokers in German shops despite the fact that the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has acknowledged that switching from cigarettes to nicotine pouches could represent a reduction in the health risk for a person who smokes.”

  • Dortmund Speakers Call for ‘Nuanced’ Regulation

    Dortmund Speakers Call for ‘Nuanced’ Regulation

    Photo: Timothy Donahue

    Speaking during the opening day of the InterTabac trade exhibition in Dortmund, Germany, tobacco industry representatives called for a nuanced regulatory framework in a global economy strained by Covid, supply chain interruptions, inflation and the energy crisis.

    Anticipating adjustments to the EU Tobacco Tax and EU Tobacco Products directives, speakers noted that not all tobacco products are created equally. For example, fine-cut tobacco has a different fiscal resilience than cigarettes, protection of minors is not an issue with classic pipe tobacco, and the market for conventional snuff is ever shrinking.

    “Especially in the current ongoing crisis management situation, it is of utmost importance not to take a broad-brush approach to regulation,” said Michael von Foerster, CEO of the German Smoking Tobacco Industry Association.

    “What we need is not new bans but active promotion of potentially less harmful innovative products, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco,” said Jan Muecke, CEO of the German Association of the Tobacco Industry and New Products (BVTE), who also urged Germany to regulate nicotine pouches like e-cigarettes, according to a BVTE press release.

    The call for product-appropriate regulation was echoed by the German Cigar Industry Association, whose products are consumed strictly for pleasure, purely occasionally and mainly by older men—which means there are no issues related to the protection of minors, according to the group.

    The German Federal Association of Tobacco Retailers drew attention to the uncertainty facing its members due to soaring costs of labor, energy and other expenses.

    The InterTabac trade fair takes place Sept. 15–17.