Tobacco Company to Develop Products without Tobacco

British American Tobacco (BAT) PLC announced their plans to create a new company called Nicoventures Ltd. which will produce products made without tobacco and with only pure nicotine in an effort to offer a safer alternative to smokers. Even though a spokeswoman of the organization said the products the company is considering aren’t on the market yet and declined to give any more details, we do know that two subsidiaries of Altria Group are testing spit-free tobacco-coated toothpicks in an effort to offer tobacco in a less socially scrutinized way. If successful, the products of Nicoventures could help wean smokers off cigarettes. It is the...

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KT&G rules slim cigarette market with best-selling Esse

What is the best-selling cigarette brand in the world? Most smokers would name one from multinational juggernauts Philip Morris, British-American Tobacco (BAT) or Japan Tobacco. As far as super-slim cigarettes are concerned, however, Korea’s KT&G dominates with its Esse cigarettes brand, which has steadily remained in the lead. The country’s largest tobacco manufacturer said Monday that it sold 42.2 billion cigarettes of Esse last year to chalk up a 44.5-percent growth from 2009 when 29.2 billion were sold. In particular, the Seoul-headquartered outfit almost doubled its exports of Esse from 11.2 billion cigarettes in 2009 to 20.8 billion...

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Plainly put, cigarette packaging matters

This week our government committed itself to the removal, albeit slowly, of cigarette displays in shops. But plain packaging on cigarettes has been delayed for further consultation. The Unite union is unimpressed. It represents 6,000 people in tobacco production and distribution, and put out a statement: “Switching to plain packaging will make it easier to sell illicit and unregulated products, especially to young people.” This, the union added, “may increase long-term health problems”. Tory MP Philip Davies said: “Plain packaging for cigarettes would be gesture politics … it would have no basis in evidence.” Everyone is entitled to their...

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