Tag: republic technologies interantional

All in the Paper

Photo: RTI
Republic Technologies strengthens its lead in the world of RYO and MYO.
By Stefanie Rossel
While a niche compared to the global combustible cigarette market, the roll-your-own products category continues to grow steadily. Trouve360 Reports valued the global RYO products market at $8.72 billion in 2021 and projects it to reach $10.67 billion by 2028, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 2.9 percent. The Covid-19 pandemic has boosted the sector, according to Santiago Sanchez, executive president of Republic Technologies International (RTI), a leading supplier of smoking accessories probably best known for its JOB, Zig-Zag and OCB rolling paper brands. “Sales increased a lot in 2020–2021 due to the stocking situation and increasing demand,” he says. “Some retailers overstocked. Now we have a kind of stabilization, which started early this year for our company. Sales have stabilized at a higher level than before Covid.”
The RYO category also benefits from its unique position in the tobacco industry. “If you look at the U.K., for example, where vaping has become very popular, you will notice that the RYO market has not been shrinking because of people switching to vape products,” says Sanchez. “Whilst we have lost some customers to vaping, we have won new customers who have downtraded from highly taxed factory-made cigarettes.”
Due to continuing tax increases for cigarettes, Sanchez expects more smokers to switch to more affordable RYO and make-your-own products. Production planning, however, has become more difficult for his company: “Currently, the situation is very dynamic due to inflation and the energy crisis following the Russian war against Ukraine and due to stockpiling; you don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” says Sanchez.
RTI boasts the largest paper booklet factory in the world. It is located at the company’s headquarters in Perpignan in the south of France and has an output of 1.2 billion booklets annually.
The company is also present in Barcelona, Spain, where it moved to a new, larger site last year. Here, RTI manufactures filter tubes for Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. With its two tube maker machines, the factory has a capacity of 4 billion tubes a year. With five filter maker machines, the plant also supplies 15 billion filters as a base for the tubes as well as for sale as bagged filters.
With Austria-based Altesse, RTI has a third production facility in Europe that manufactures tubes and filters for Central Europe; Germany is the main market for tubes in Europe. Top Tubes in Montreal, Canada, supplies the North American market with filter tubes. A plant in North Carolina produces RYO and MYO products as well as pipe tobaccos for the United States, where the RTI operates under the name Republic Brands. Furthermore, five distribution companies in the U.S., Canada, France, the U.K. and Germany are affiliated with RTI.
Controlled Process
Santiago Sanchez
The company sells to 110 countries worldwide and is vertically integrated. Most of the paper it processes is produced by its sister company Papeteries du Leman, which is associated with the privately held Republic Technologies Group. “From cigarette paper to the final product, everything comes from one company,” Sanchez emphasizes. “We also have close ties with the people growing the plants for the raw materials of our products, for example the farmers in Champagne who grow hemp for our hemp papers.”
RTI has total control of the process, according to Sanchez. To help reduce greenhouse gases, the company tries to source its materials locally as much as possible. “Except for the Arabic gum that is imported from Africa and the bamboo that we source from China, all raw materials and machinery come from within 500 km of our Perpignan site,” says Sanchez.
Operating in a comparatively small segment of the tobacco industry, RTI does not have available as vast of an array of ready-made manufacturing equipment as the large cigarette companies do. Instead, the smoking accessories supplier has an R&D department with a team of engineers and technicians who design all machinery, which is then custom built. Maximized automation and flexibility are key requirements of the equipment as RTI produces many different paper specifications based not only on cellulose but also on textile fibers such as hemp, flax, bamboo and rice. Traceability is another consideration. Each bobbin is marked with a matrix code so that the paper can be traced back to the machine and even the canal on which it was manufactured. As one measure to protect its products from being counterfeited, RTI embosses its papers with watermarks.
Counterfeiting is a big issue in the RYO category, according to Sanchez, who observes this threat especially for RTI’s OCB brand, with fakes coming mostly from China. The company says it relentlessly pursues counterfeiters. In March this year, it won a significant legal victory in the U.S. when a jury found that a Georgia-based wholesaler had willfully sold and distributed counterfeit rolling paper products under Republic Brands’ TOP and JOB trademarks. Republic Brands and its affiliates were awarded $11 million in damages from the counterfeiting wholesaler and its owner.
R&D is Key
At its headquarters, RTI has a dedicated laboratory that checks the ingredients and raw materials of the company’s products for regulatory compliance. It also analyzes competitors’ products and fake versions of its own trademarks. The lab is equipped to measure all paper characteristics, such as opacity, tensile strength, porosity or thickness.
R&D is a must for RTI because of legislation, the move toward more environmentally friendly production and other factors, says Sanchez. “Regulation makes work highly complicated. Being delivered to 110 markets, our products have to comply with all the different regulations, health warnings and even plain packaging requirements, as is the case in Israel,” he says.
RTI’s lab also provides vaping machines and related testing equipment. The company diversified into the vape category in 2014 and has since been selling e-liquids under the E-CG brand. In October 2020, the company acquired French liquid manufacturer Innovative – So Good to expand the scope of its business. Today, RTI is one of the leaders in the French vape market, where its liquids are exclusively sold through tobacconists. All liquids are created at the Perpignan site.
One of the advantages of rolling papers is that they can be made with naturally occurring fibers and without calcium carbonate and citrate as combustion additives, as is the case with factory-made cigarettes.
In June 2019, the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive entered into force. Since then, all tobacco products with filters and filters marketed for use in combination with tobacco products in the common market must carry a label that states that the products contain plastic.
Presently, the RTI’s R&D team develops many products that are more environmentally friendly. RTI has launched a line of biodegradable filters that are made with paper. Touch and filter properties are virtually the same as those of cellulose acetate (CA) filters, explains Sanchez. “It’s the result of a two-year development,” he says. “Technically, it replicates CA. Tests have shown that smoking experience is the same, and from a physical point of view, pressure drop equals that in a CA filter. We are the only ones offering this kind of biodegradable filter for RYO. The paper is the key; it is made from cellulose and viscose. Only few paper manufacturers are capable of producing this.”
RTI also markets its biodegradable filters in some of its tube products. Environmentally friendly filters today account for 20 percent of the company’s turnover from filters.
New Base Materials
Regarding rolling papers, the company has a wide range of products in its portfolio. RTI claims to be the only company selling cigarette papers that contain real rice fibers. “Rice fibers are quite fragile; they tend to break too often on high-speed machines,” says Sanchez. “So many manufacturers stopped making it. We developed a rice paper in 2021 with a mixed blend consisting of 50 percent rice and 50 percent hemp and adopted our manufacturing process to handle the product.” Rice paper is one of the original cigarette paper types; it burns more evenly and reportedly gives more of a natural taste, so many consumers still want it. The rice that RTI processes in its paper comes from the French Camargue region.
In 2021, RTI also introduced Roor rolling papers with CBD-infused gum, which are distributed in markets where CBD is legal, such as the U.K. and Germany. “Due to Covid, the product has been launched only recently, but it’s doing particularly well in Germany. We also offer variants with rice, organic hemp and unbleached papers,” says Sanchez.
OCB Bamboo is another newcomer from RTI. “We have developed a full range of bamboo papers, which we are now planning to sell worldwide,” Sanchez says. “OCB Bamboo has been a big success in the U.S. Bamboo is good for the environment; it grows fast and needs no fertilizers. We are trying to find an alternative source to China, for instance, in the Philippines.”
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.

August 1, 2022
JOB Collaboration With Rap Mogul Birdman

Photo: Republic
Republic’s JOB rolling papers brand is launching a line of products in collaboration with rap mogul Birdman’s $TUNNA brand.
“When we learned that Birdman was a fan of our historic JOB rolling papers brand, we knew that JOB’s creativity-focused premium style would match perfectly with his luxury lifestyle and personal brand,” said Paul Marobella, president and chief marketing officer of Republic, in a press note. “JOB has long been a cultural icon and a favorite in rolling circles, and we look forward to that continuing through our partnership with the music industry legend Birdman and his Cash Money Records.”
JOB x $TUNNA Champagne rolling papers feature organic hemp paper sourced from Champagne, France, and will be sold in 1¼ and 1½ booklets. Following the launch, JOB x $TUNNA plans to expand its line to include cones, accessories and apparel.
Republic will debut JOB x $TUNNA Organic Hemp Rolling Papers at the CHAMPS Las Vegas trade show, July 27–30, 2021. JOB x $TUNNA products are available for presale at the Republic Brands booth (#5205) prior to the product’s official launch date in September 2021.
In addition, Republic Brands’ top customers will get access to an exclusive concert sponsored by JOB x $TUNNA featuring Gucci Mane on July 29.
Bryan Williams, known by his stage name Birdman, is an entrepreneur, rapper and record producer who is the public face of one of the most successful record labels in hip-hop history, Cash Money Records. Birdman has released four solo albums in his career and has mentored many famous artists, most notably his protege Lil Wayne.
JOB rolling papers was founded in 1838 by Jean Bardou of Perpignan, France, where Bardou introduced the first rolling paper booklet to the world.
Since then, JOB has continued producing its high-quality rolling papers with the core principles of sustainability, craft and stewardship.

Bryan Williams, known by his stage name Birdman, is an entrepreneur, rapper and record producer who is the public face of one of the most successful record labels in hip-hop history, Cash Money Records. Birdman has released four solo albums in his career, and has mentored many famous artists, most notably his protege Lil Wayne. (Photo: Business Wire)
July 23, 2021
A Golden Age

Photos: Curved Papers and Republic Technologies
The Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding, rolling papers, blunt wraps and cones are flying off the shelves in some markets.
By George Gay
Michael O’Malley
If you speak about the roll-your-own (RYO) sector with Michael O’Malley of Curved Papers, much of what he says revolves around marijuana, so it is easy to come away with the idea that RYO’s future lies in this direction. But he dismisses this idea, pointing to the huge disparity in volume sales between those of tobacco and those of marijuana, which, of course, favors the former. However, he concedes that, right now, marijuana is making the news and the running, partly by providing what he describes as a “vortex of innovation.”
I guess this is only to be expected. Tobacco has been on sale legally for a long time while marijuana is only now gaining the stamp of legislative approval in a limited number of jurisdictions. This is the time for marijuana-use research and fast-moving, follow-up innovation, something that has attracted the attention of a wide range of companies, including major corporations involved with tobacco, beverages and consumer packaged goods: companies that are investing directly or indirectly in marijuana and associated intellectual property.
Overall, the RYO market was steady globally, said O’Malley, but, at the same, it was generating a significant expansion in brands and products because of the entry of marijuana, primarily in North America. In 2017, Canada and Mexico both passed federal legislation on marijuana and, recently, Mexico followed through with full adult use (previously more usually termed “recreational use” to distinguish it from medicinal use), leaving the U.S., by far the largest market, the laggard on federal legislation. However, 17 U.S. states, including some populous ones, had now opted for full legalization while almost every state had a legal medical marijuana program.
That last point is significant because the dynamics of U.S. state legalization has tended to see medicinal marijuana leading the way before being followed by adult use. In some states that allowed only medicinal use, programs were based on “no flower consumption”—that is, no smoking. However, under pressure from people making use of these programs, and with the support of medical professionals, new regulations and/or legislative amendments have been introduced to allow for smoking to be part of these programs.
O’Malley, who is based in the U.S., believes the legalization of marijuana will sweep from state to state and will eventually lead the U.S. to align nationally on this issue and broadly with its North American neighbors, despite the existence of considerable resistance in some states and powerful opposition at the federal level.

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Flying off the shelves
Even with the situation as it is, O’Malley was moved to say that now was something of a “golden age” for the RYO market, encompassing both tobacco and marijuana. Rolling papers, blunt wraps and cones were all flying off the shelves like never before, he said, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic. In part, this was because, in the U.S., outlets selling RYO products, including convenience stores, gas stations and dispensaries, were largely deemed essential at the outset of the pandemic while smoke shops and head shops had also been open for some time.
At the time of writing in mid-April, Curved Papers had suffered no supply chain interruptions because of the pandemic and, as a consequence, had been able to absorb an uptick in demand for its products. O’Malley said the legalization of marijuana was attracting new smokers and that many of these were drawn to Curved Papers’ products because their curved edge made it easier to roll a cigarette with inexperienced fingers. At the same time, he added, expert rollers continued to enjoy the “elegant convenience of the easy-to-roll curved edge.” And he is confident about the future, saying that economics and consumer preferences would remain favorable for hand-rolling.
This confidence is steadfast even in the light of the emergence of machines capable of producing cylindrical joints resembling tobacco cigarettes. In fact, O’Malley sees the products of these new machines, some of which are expected to be launched this year, as providing competition more for the products of the knockbox machines used for filling cones than for hand-rolled cigarettes. “These new machines will not eliminate rolling joints,” he said. “We see them as complementary to and supportive of our markets.” Smoking the flower had survived the onslaught of speculative product introductions in the past, he added, including that of vaping devices.

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Ancillary products
While recent developments have seen the introduction of a lot of new products and product categories, O’Malley points out that rolling papers still comprise the biggest of the ancillary products in both tobacco and marijuana. But this should not be interpreted as meaning that O’Malley is anti-new developments or anti-technology. He describes Curved Papers as being an innovative company with a soon-to-be-announced development that will have an impact on how rolling papers are made in the future.
For the time being, however, the company is content to remain a supplier of an ancillary product that doesn’t become involved directly with marijuana plants and therefore doesn’t become tied up with the accompanying regulations.
However, it has consulted with companies that are so involved, including those researching CBD rolling papers and marijuana wraps. And, O’Malley said, because sustainability was a core value for Curved Papers, it had collaborated in the field of so-called hemp plastic, from which it would like to see produced a truly recyclable “doob tube,” which, for the uninitiated such as me, is a container in which to keep pre-rolled joints.
Finally, O’Malley mentioned that while it was difficult to predict how U.S. relations with China would develop, there were likely to be implications for the RYO sector. China-made rolling papers had fueled a previously unseen white label market that had undercut European suppliers on price and that was continuing to narrow the gap on quality. But that surge might be slowed if East-West relations chilled during the next decade, and it was possible that the positions taken by the U.S. and the EU on China might differ, leaving the U.S. more isolated. In that case, he said, it would be interesting to see if product manufacturing returned to the U.S., even in the case of ancillary products such as tobacco rolling papers. “We see a possible window opening, again aided by developments around marijuana,” he said.

Environmental considerations
Santiago Sanchez
For the time being in Europe, one of the main concerns of the RYO sector is the EU’s Single-use Plastics (SUP) directive, which Santiago Sanchez of Republic Technologies International (RTI) described as almost surreal. He said he agreed that the use of plastics should be restricted because the damage being done to wildlife was immense and the situation had to be reversed. And Republic was committed to playing its part in protecting the environment, he added, as was evidenced by the company’s rolling-papers booklet factory, which, since the beginning of last year, had been running only on “green electricity.”
Nevertheless, Sanchez is concerned that the SUP regulations are not realistic in that the period given for their implementation is unreasonable. Under the regulations, suppliers of filters marketed for use in combination with tobacco products are required to have printed on their packaging “plastic in filter,” a legend that must be rendered in the language or languages of each EU member state on which these products are sold. Of itself, this might not have posed a problem, but the text was published officially only in March, and products must include this message if they are “placed on the market” after July 3. Additionally, it is not clear what is meant by “placed on the market,” and the EU, at the time of writing, was yet to clarify the term.
Sanchez said that major industries could not work with such short timeframes, which eventually could lead to a situation whereby manufacturers might have to destroy products that fell foul of such timeframes. In this event, it was possible that the regulation would, bizarrely, lead to a waste of energy and raw materials, not to mention the financial loss.
One area where Republic had been concerned about the possibility of cost-induced losses has not come to fruition, however. The uncertainty over Brexit meant the company had had to play safe by placing additional stock on the U.K. market so as to avoid the possibility of product shortages in the shops. But whereas successive delays in the implementation of the Brexit accords forced the company to keep such additional stocks for quite some time, in the end, procedures worked quite smoothly, and Republic was not negatively affected by Brexit apart from some additional costs engendered by the necessity of producing extra paperwork. Currently, the company is bringing down its U.K. stock levels to normal levels.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have caused a significant increase in sales in all of Republic’s product categories. Whether consumers smoked more due to the stress, whether they switched to cheaper products or whether both phenomena were in play, the result has been an increase in demand for the company’s products. A big factor here, of course, was that these products were distributed by major chains and tobacco shops, which were declared essential almost everywhere, which meant the public had access to smoking items.
In most of Europe, meanwhile, people don’t have easy access to marijuana as many do in North America, and most of those who do cannot smoke it legally. But Sanchez recognizes there is a boom in progress in North America and notes that this development could spread. Even in the U.K., where even medicinal marijuana is generally frowned upon, the mayor of London is launching a consultation; though, already, the central government has declared this is not a matter for London alone.
In general, Sanchez said, demand for marijuana-related products was increasing and, in his opinion, would continue to do so. Companies, he added, should adapt to the new situation by taking advantage of the opportunities. “And in this sense, RTI is glad to confirm that it will launch shortly in selected markets a new range of rolling papers with CBD-infused natural gum,” he said. “It will be the first of its kind, and we are extremely proud of this development with a patented system that will bring a plus to marijuana consumers.”

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In fits and spurts: Is the predicted growth in RYO sales sustainable?
I’m told that the value of the global roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco product market is roughly about one percent of that of the all-embracing, global tobacco product market, but according to a February press note promoting analysis by Grand View Research, while the total product market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.8 percent from 2021 to 2028, the RYO market is expected to expand during the same period by a CAGR of 4.2 percent.
This is positive news if you’re in the RYO business, especially if you are exclusively in that business. But before you start to cheer, it might be worthwhile spending a minute or two examining the reasons given for the predicted, relatively fast rise in RYO product business.
“The rising consumption of [RYO] products among females and students is fueling market growth over the world,” the press note said. “The adoption rate of the product is increasing among the youth in major economies, including the U.S. Moreover, the financial stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged numerous smokers to shift from factory-made cigarettes to hand-rolled cigarettes due to the cost advantage of roll-your-own … tobacco products.”
Although the Covid-19 pandemic might be seen as something exceptional, the reaction of smokers to the financial stresses that it has caused is anything but exceptional. It has been well documented in the past that, outside the core of RYO product consumers, there are smokers who move from factory-made cigarettes to RYO products and back again on a schedule that conforms roughly with the relative prices of RYO and factory-made cigarettes and with the health or otherwise of their finances, which might change according to their personal circumstances or local, national or global events, such as the economic hit caused by Covid-19. So the boost to the value of the RYO market that can be laid at the door of the pandemic is likely to evaporate if or when the virus is beaten, tamed or becomes part of the family, as with influenza; though, admittedly, with the current lack of attention to prevention, it’s always the case that another pandemic-inducing virus could be just around the corner.
The other “problem” with the stated reasons for the predicted growth in the value of the RYO market is that they include rising consumption of such products among women and students around the world. Those opposed to tobacco consumption, especially the peculiar group that comprises people who seem to want tobacco manufacturer profits to be maintained as high as possible, will jump on this information as being indicative of the wicked nature of the RYO industry. In addition, the idea that RYO products should be sold around the world when, in the past, they have been confined largely to some specific geographical locations will not go down well. At the same time, even most of those championing sex equality will rail against any shift toward women of what has traditionally been a male-dominated habit. And, well, better we all fall down dead than a student or youth should be seen puffing on a rollie.
What we have here is ammunition for those wanting to raise taxes on RYO products to the point where the cost of RYO smoking becomes as ridiculously high as that of factory-made cigarette smoking—all in the cause of helping the RYO smoker of course.
It won’t help that the press note says the market for RYO filters will outperform that for other RYO products, with a 4.7 percent CAGR between 2021 to 2028, in part at least because of the introduction of biodegradable or environmentally friendly filters. Many people question whether cigarette filters perform any useful purpose beyond keeping tobacco out of the mouths of smokers, and they worry that filters tend to encourage smokers to keep smoking by giving them, in the view of those opposed to filters, a false sense of harm mitigation.
But if there is one thing that is likely to raise the blood pressure of people opposed to smoking more than filters, it is flavors, and the report apparently describes how flavors are helping to propel the increase in the market for RYO products. And it gets worse. Flavors, different sized products and attractive packaging are said to be combining to propel a global demand for premium RYO products, an idea that will surely make it increasingly difficult to sell the idea that RYO is aimed largely at financially impoverished smokers.
None of this is to say that the report’s authors should have shied away from describing what they see as the likely drivers of the market for RYO products; it’s just an interesting parallel to the phenomenon encountered by quantum physicists—that it is not possible to measure stuff without disturbing it. —G.G.

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.

May 1, 2021
Republic Buys French E-Liquid Maker

Photo: Manfred Schindler from Pixabay
Republic Technologies International (RTI) has bought Innovative – So Good to expand the scope of its business. The acquisition bolsters RTI’s presence in the e-cigarette segment and establishes the company as a major player in premium certified French origin e-liquids.
Based in Angouleme, France, Innovative – So Good manufacturers e-liquids and distributes equipment exclusively available through the tobacconists’ network.
“So Good is a recognized brand and customers appreciate the high quality of its liquids,” said RTI Managing Director Olivier Partouche, who oversaw the purchase. “Thanks to the work of Cedric Lacouture and his teams, it has become a major premium brand available through the tobacconist network. The complementary nature of our E-CG liquids was obvious to us and this merger will help us further expand our product offering and enable us to support tobacconists as they grow this new segment.”
“Our joining forces with Republic Technologies through the E-CG brand is excellent news for our customers,” said Lacouture, So Good’s founder. “In the short term, they’ll get access to a comprehensive offering of e-liquids, e-cigarettes and items for smokers. Of all the acquisition proposals that we received, [RTI’s] was the most persuasive as far as So Good’s future and its development are concerned.”
For more than 150 years, the Republic Technologies group has been developing and manufacturing cigarette paper under the OCB, Job and Zig-Zag brands. Building on its industrial experience, the group has been selling e-liquids and vaping accessories under the E-CG brand since 2015.
October 1, 2020
The Natural Experience

Photo: Republic Technologies International
Republic Technologies burnishes its environmental credentials.
By George Gay
When Santiago Sanchez of Republic Technologies International (RTI) responded to my request for information about the current state of the RYO/MYO sector, he suggested that I might like to watch a video about how his company had taken part in a program aimed at helping to regenerate areas of Kenya where, for various, often multiple reasons, the environment had become degraded. He warned me that it was “a bit long” but assured me that it was worth watching.
I must admit that normally my heart sinks when I’m asked to watch company videos, but I didn’t find this one overly long, and I thought it was well worth watching. It concerned something that I had known almost nothing about, and it helped me to understand RTI’s approach to its business and its products. The company’s website (www.natural-experience.com/en/natural-world) says that it is dedicated to respecting the environment by reducing waste wherever possible and otherwise reusing or recycling products. “We are committed to quality, human relationships and the environment,” the website says.
Okay, these could be empty words, but watch the video (https://bit.ly/2woh50K) and I think you will find evidence that, at least in respect of the fine line of gum that runs along one edge of each RYO rolling paper produced by RTI, the issues of quality, human relationships and the environment are all to the fore and addressed in ways that might surprise. The idea of an RYO/MYO accessories (and e-liquids) company being indirectly involved in planting trees from the air is, I think, something that would raise questions in the mind of even the most uninquisitive person.
I won’t go into any details here because the video is far more descriptive than I can be, but I shall point out simply that RTI’s support of the nongovernmental organization Seedballs Kenya, through its OCB brand, is linked to RTI’s use on its cigarette booklet papers only of pure, organic, vegan-friendly gum arabic that is extracted from African acacia trees—support that, in turn, helps sustain the livelihoods of the people who harvest and carry out the initial processing of the gum arabic.

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Beyond gum
But RTI has been in the vanguard of addressing environmental issues that go far beyond gum arabic. For instance, the hemp that it uses to produce thin but strong rolling papers is grown organically without the use of insecticides or even irrigated water. And, importantly, the company provides information about its annual needs to the cooperative of French farmers who produce the hemp to ensure that the cooperative can manage its output in a sustainable way.
At the same time, the company offers RYO filters that are made of pure cellulose fibers sourced from sustainably managed forests. They are unbleached and naturally biodegradable and, RTI says, provide a better filtration than is provided by other types of filters. And then there are the rolling paper packs that are produced from recycled paper and printed with vegetable inks that are low in odor and have low-migration properties.
With such an emphasis on respecting the environment, it would be reasonable to expect that RTI and its OCB brand, despite their tobacco connection, would be welcomed as part of the family of responsible companies and products. But that is not necessarily the case. Sanchez told me that the Belgian government has decided that it is contrary to the provisions of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) to allow rolling paper packs to bear messages attesting to the positive credentials of the papers—messages such as “unbleached” or “organic.” I’m not sure, but I guess this will have come about because of the tortured logic that says that consumers, on seeing, for instance, that papers are organic, will be encouraged to smoke. It assumes that consumers’ thinking so lacks nuance that they cannot tell the difference between organic beetroot and organic rat poison.

RTI has further burnished its environmental credentials with the launch, under its OCB brand name, of the Virgin Paper Roll Kit comprising 32 slim paper leaves, 32 unbleached cardboard filters and a foldable rolling tray and rubber band to store the kit. The virgin paper is sourced from Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood and involves no animal testing. It is unbleached, and no chalk or dyes are used in its production. The gum used on the paper is pure gum arabic, and the packaging is printed with vegetable-based inks.
Worrying developments
Fortunately, Belgium is the only EU member state to take this stance. But its doing so shows up one of the problems that a company such as RTI faces. Because the various states, when transposing EU regulations into national laws, can interpret those regulations differently, the TPD does not provide the consistent rulebook that it might appear to provide.
And this is significant because though as an RYO/MYO accessories provider, RTI is not greatly affected by the TPD in a direct way, it of course suffers the cold winds of the TPD that blow through the manufacturers of RYO and MYO tobaccos. And those cold winds keep blowing. While the revision of TPD2 is still about a year away, Sanchez says, he is already hearing comments about how TPD3 will add further restrictions. And he is rightly concerned because, as he pointed out, the imagination of EU regulators is boundless in this area.
Another issue that is likely to cause problems for the tobacco industry in general is the upcoming EU directive on single-use plastics that will probably embrace the “polluter pays” principle where the polluter is interpreted as the manufacturer—of acetate filters, for instance—rather than the consumer who carelessly discards the item.
Meanwhile, things are also tough in the U.S. where, for instance, the process that manufacturers have to go through to obtain approval from the Food and Drug Administration to put a new or modified product on the market seems so complex as to be unreasonable. Sanchez said that it was hardly possible for small RYO/MYO players to comply with these requirements and that some companies had withdrawn from the market. RTI, he added, had to increase its workforce just to do the testing and create the thousands of documents that were needed for compliance.
Standardized packaging is another issue making life difficult—and not only in an indirect way. Although it seems to beggar belief, two countries, Israel and Canada, have implemented standardized packaging requirements for rolling paper booklets while Belgium has done the same for booklets that carry the same brand name as a tobacco product.
But one of the most worrying developments that will inevitably affect RTI indirectly is the tendency for some countries to close or reduce the tax differentials between those applied to cigarettes and those applied to RYO/MYO tobacco. Portugal and the Czech Republic have already closed the gap, and the U.K. in March moved to reduce the difference.
And, of course, RTI is plagued by the availability of counterfeit rolling paper booklets and the reluctance of many countries to take effective action against such illegal trade. Sanchez estimates that just a small proportion of counterfeit products are being intercepted in the EU and the U.S. but is claiming some success for a unique QR code system that the company has introduced and that allows wholesalers, retailers and consumers to check whether they are buying genuine products.
Looking on the bright side, Sanchez says that RYO/MYO companies are generally doing better than the manufacturers of factory-made cigarettes and that RTI is doing particularly well. But, as always, there’s a catch. He said that RTI had been developing its presence on a number of markets—before, that is, the coronavirus crisis had raised its head. The situation was now complex, he added, and it was just too difficult to predict what the future might hold.

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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.

May 1, 2020
New leadership at RTI
Republic Technologies International (RTI) has appointed Santiago Sanchez as president effective July 1, 2017. Previously, Sanchez was sales and marketing director of RTI. He joined the company in 2005. Under his leadership, RTI expanded its business in new markets and set standards of performance in sales and profitability.
“Santiago is widely respected for consistently delivering strong business results and is very knowledgeable of the smoking-requisites market where he has spent his entire professional career,” said Don Levin, chairman of RTI. “I look forward to working with him to continue to drive the growth and strategic goals of our company.”
“I am really delighted to have this opportunity, which for me represents my arrival to the summit of my career dedicated to the RYO and MYO business,” said Sanchez. “I very much look forward to leading our management and bringing RTI into a very successful future”.
Sanchez assumed his new position following the retirement of Philippe Parcevaux who had previously run the group as president for more than 20 years.
“It is with personal regret but warm wishes that I announce the retirement of Philippe as president of RTI,” said Levin. “His leaving marks the end of an era for the group. He took a small local manufacturer in the south of France and steered it to be the world leader in the RYO and MYO accessories market. We owe him for the brilliant position that RTI is in now. I can only stress my gratitude for his dedication and achievement. His work has left us tremendously well-positioned for continued success in the coming years.”
Headquartered in Perpignan, France, RTI is a key player in the manufacture and sale of RYO and MYO accessories, and a worldwide leader in rolling papers, tubes, filters and other related accessories.

July 6, 2017