Roll your own (RYO) has always soared in times of financial restraints, be it due to recession or higher cigarette taxes, and snus is becoming more popular, especially among health-conscious smokers and trendsetters.
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RYO is widespread among the lower income segments and the student population, and growth rates have exceeded ten per cent in many countries over the past few years, increasing the demand for packaging machinery. Smokeless tobacco, especially snus, is making impressive inroads, too, and is an interesting product category to watch. Originally more of a Swedish thing, it is slowly but steadily becoming embraced by the entire smoking population as a smoking alternative, regardless of income or social standing, with the US, India and Asia experiencing the highest growth rates.
The EU lags far behind, as snus is only allowed officially in Sweden, the other member states prohibiting legal sales. The reasoning being that any form of tobacco is unhealthy, full stop. This reasoning may appear somewhat strange to follow, as statistics clearly show snus users have considerably fewer health complaints than cigarette smokers, which is confirmed year by year by health statistics, with Swedes having by far the lowest rate of lung cancer in the EU. Great hopes on the approval of snus in the EU were pinned on the six-month presidency of the Swedes, who had loudly advocated they would push for EU-wide approval. Unfortunately, the only thing to have happened so far under Swedish presidency is the most bizarre proposal ever on tobacco regulation (for full details see the next issue of TJI).
This may have dashed the hopes of the packaging machinery manufacturers somewhat, but they have little reason to complain, as the order books are pretty full for snus pouch packers, especially for the smaller compact machines. Add to this the recent announcement by Altria in the US that it would be rolling out its Marlboro Snus smokeless tobacco nationwide in 2010, after testing the product since 2007. RJ Reynolds had rolled out its Camel Snus product nationally in 2009. So snus is coming, of that there can be no doubts at all. Even NRTs (nicotine replacement therapy) are now available for snus users.
[b]Following two paths[/b]
It is expected that packaging machinery for smokeless tobacco products generally, but snus in particular, will be developed according to two major criteria. In higher-price countries, where the cost of the empty tins is less than ten per cent of the price, the existing packaging systems with tin outers will continue to dominate the market and will require machines for weighing, portioning, filling, direct counting into tins, closing lids, applying revenue stamps, labels etc. In low-price countries, with prices below EUR 1.00 (USD 1.36) per pack, the trend will be for machines filling and portioning into zipper pouches or refill pouches.
According to Eckhard Merz, founder of Merz Verpackungsmaschinen in Lich, Germany, one of the oldest manufacturers of packaging machinery for smokeless tobacco, India is a market developing in leaps and bounds, especially for the latter type of machines. To meet this demand, Merz is about to introduce a new compact machine, the SB51-T/SBL100. This follows hard on the heels of the company's recent single-lane, "tropical" compact, which packs directly into aluminium-laminated foil sachets at a rate of 400 to 450 pouches per minute. The maximum speeds for snus packaging are eventually expected to be around 650 pouches per minute, limited by the time required for filling and sealing.
On the RYO front, a number of advances in terms of speed and reliability have also been made. In 2009, Germany's Emkon launched three new packers, the Base 60, the Emkon 120 and the Emkon Speed 180, the first-ever pouch packer to run at speeds of 180 pouches per minute. The secret behind this engineering feat is the Motion Link technology, a 12-station transporter, which allows reproducible and precise positioning.
The Technical Development Corporation (TDC) in Kampen, Netherlands, is part of the International Tobacco Machinery Group and, in its own words, the leading supplier of volume pack. A new, modern tooling facility is equipped with five-axis milling machines to provide state-of-the-art technology. Recent product introductions include the FPP210S and FPP220 flexible pouch packers, which are capable of producing all types of pouches (such as side gussets as well as wrap-around) using a wide range of materials. Among two new developments are the dosing and packaging machinery for molasses, and, the most recent, a high-speed, discrete handling system for snus bags, which allows the customer to pack individual pouches in any form whatsoever, from single foil-wrapped to neatly stacked, formed or positioned in blisters, tins, etc.
Whatever the future holds for RYO, snus and other forms of smokeless tobacco, the packaging machinery industry has shown it is more than capable of handling all challenges en route and has continuously come up with advanced machinery to handle most eventualities. The only possible question mark being whether there is enough ready machine-building capacity if taxes continue to push demand for RYO and snus continues its solid growth performance. Enditem
