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[ INDUSTRY NEWS]
Everyone goes smokeless
Over the past month or two, smokeless tobacco has been making news. At the end of April, R.J. Reynolds hit the ground running. On April 25, it announced its purchase of Conwood for a whopping $3.5 billion. Conwood, which specializes in moist smokeless tobacco, makes and markets a variety of smokeless tobacco products, snuff and loose-leaf tobacco. Two days later, Reynolds announced the launch in test market of Camel SNUS (pronounced snoose), a new smokeless, spitless pouch product manufactured in Sweden, where snus is purported to be quite popular, according to Citigroup tobacco analyst Bonnie Herzog. It is pasteurized, not fermented and comes in Original, Spice and Frost flavors. In May, test market sales began at select retail outlets in Austin, Texas and Portland, Ore.
About a week after Reynolds’ announcement, Philip Morris USA announced the launch of its own pasteurized, spitless, smokeless pouch product, Taboka. It comes in Original and Taboka Green flavors and will be test marketed in Indianapolis, Ind. starting in July.
Not to be left behind, on May 11, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company announced its launch in test market of its new spitless, smokeless pouch product, Skoal Dry, available in Regular, Menthol and Cinnamon. USST will launch the product in test markets sometime in July in Austin, Texas, where it will take on Camel SNUS, and Louisville.
For more information on Camel SNUS, visit www.SnusCamel.com. Be prepared to fill out many forms. For information on Skoal Dry, visit www.skoaldry.com, still under construction as of this writing.TR
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