A comment posted on The Unloading Zone blog:
I wouldn't get too excited about positive articles in the press on snus. Usually, there is someone behind them who is in Corporate Affairs of one of the tobacco companies. One major article in summer 2007 in WSJ Europe was set up by ESTOC, the European Smokeless Tobacco Council (all major manufacturers sans PM). Without that give-and-take, it would be quite difficult for a newspaper to go positive on a tobacco product.
What is interesting, is that all the US "sweet" snuses except Marlboro were developed in Sweden. Camel was created and originally produced at F&L in round 'Mocca' tins, and the Nordic American products were created in Gotland by Taboca. Triumph was developed by SM in Gothenburg for Lorillard.
PM had the expertise of the Rocker factory for dry snus, and then developed proprietary machine technology with GD Bologna for US production, and came up with the crap which is Taboka and Marlboro.
Any flavor differences between US and Swedish snus are from research amongst smokers in the US, and probably expensive and thorough research at that. American-blend cigarettes all contain a degree of flavors and resulting sweetness which are added into the production process. This could be a starting point for the sweet snuses. 45 million American Smokers are the desired demographic, and not Swedish snus lovers.
Putting on my paranoid Anti-Tobacco Detector hat, I can also predict how they will attack sweet snus as a way to attract kids to tobacco. Once hooked, they will seek the stronger nicotine delivery which comes with cigarettes. In the south, a buck buys you a nice round tin. And thus, the true harm reduction of the product will be lost in the dust.
As for the 'like pasteurization' claim of NAS's (Nordic American: Klondike and Nordic Ice) new website, don't forget that one cannot take creative license with the production process. Snus is pasteurized. Period.
If is not produced according to Swedish Food Law standards, it cannot be called 'snus.' If it's not heat-pasteurized, it's not snus.
I wouldn't get too excited about positive articles in the press on snus. Usually, there is someone behind them who is in Corporate Affairs of one of the tobacco companies. One major article in summer 2007 in WSJ Europe was set up by ESTOC, the European Smokeless Tobacco Council (all major manufacturers sans PM). Without that give-and-take, it would be quite difficult for a newspaper to go positive on a tobacco product.
What is interesting, is that all the US "sweet" snuses except Marlboro were developed in Sweden. Camel was created and originally produced at F&L in round 'Mocca' tins, and the Nordic American products were created in Gotland by Taboca. Triumph was developed by SM in Gothenburg for Lorillard.
PM had the expertise of the Rocker factory for dry snus, and then developed proprietary machine technology with GD Bologna for US production, and came up with the crap which is Taboka and Marlboro.
Any flavor differences between US and Swedish snus are from research amongst smokers in the US, and probably expensive and thorough research at that. American-blend cigarettes all contain a degree of flavors and resulting sweetness which are added into the production process. This could be a starting point for the sweet snuses. 45 million American Smokers are the desired demographic, and not Swedish snus lovers.
Putting on my paranoid Anti-Tobacco Detector hat, I can also predict how they will attack sweet snus as a way to attract kids to tobacco. Once hooked, they will seek the stronger nicotine delivery which comes with cigarettes. In the south, a buck buys you a nice round tin. And thus, the true harm reduction of the product will be lost in the dust.
As for the 'like pasteurization' claim of NAS's (Nordic American: Klondike and Nordic Ice) new website, don't forget that one cannot take creative license with the production process. Snus is pasteurized. Period.
If is not produced according to Swedish Food Law standards, it cannot be called 'snus.' If it's not heat-pasteurized, it's not snus.
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