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SWEDISH MATCH USING FOIL FOR FRESHNESS |
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Los Angeles, January 24 – “The level of freshness is the deal breaker and the moment of truth for a cigar smoker is squeezing the cigar and discovering its freshness.”
That’s Swedish Match North America’s Marketing Director Brian Love, relating the findings of a company survey from August 2007 that showed 65 percent of smokers surveyed citing freshness as more important than taste and price. Swedish Match North America handles the company’s machine-made lines (Garcia y Vega, Robert Burns, Tiparillo, White Owl and others) while General Cigar handles the handmade brands such as Cohiba, Hoyo de Monterrey, Macanudo, Partagas and Punch.
Capitalizing on smoker interest in freshness in its machine-made cigars, Swedish Match has introduced a Foil Fresh pouch for its hot-selling Game by Garcia y Vega and White Owl brands. It offers either a single large cigar in its own pouch or two cigarillos in a resealable pouch. The Game by Garcia y Vega and White Owl cigarillo two-packs are available now with the Game Palma (6 inches by 42 ring gauge), and White Owl Blunt (4 3/4 x 41) in grape and peach flavors available on March 17.
“There was a significant reduction of moisture in the cellophane-wrapped cigars when stored in adverse conditions for two weeks,” said Love. “By week four, they were dry. The new foil packaging clearly passed the threshold well over 44 weeks with almost no moisture loss when compared to cellophane-wrapped cigars.”
The new packaging will help Swedish Match in several ways. Perhaps just as important as the freshness aspect is the ability to offer single cigars (or two cigarillos) to consumers at the point of purchase instead of a five-pack or an entire box. Convenience stores and gas stations across the country offer de-boxed cigars such as Swisher Sweets, wrapped in cellophane and sold singly out of a canister or a paper cup by the cash register. However, these cigars can turn dry and unsmokable if not sold quickly.
The new pouches also allow Swedish Match to offer two of its best-selling brands in stay-fresh packaging to compete with other foil-pouched brands, notably Altadis U.S.A.’s popular Backwoods. These all-tobacco cigarillos are small at 4 1/8 inches and 27 ring gauge and come in foil packs of eight. Also available in pouches and growing in popularity are some wild brands such as:
Royal Blunts, machine-made in the U.S. and offered in a Blunts (4 3/4 x 41) and Cigarillo (4 5/8 x 29) size, in a variety of flavors in sealed pouches of five cigars or in boxes of 25 or 50;
Blunt Wrap Loaded, machine-made in the Dominican Republic and offered in roughly the same two sizes, also in single-cigar foil packs, and
Bluntville, introduced in 2007 as a handmade cigar out of Nicaragua in one size (4 x 34) in three flavors and offered as foil-packed singles or in boxes of 25.
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