Smoking Ban harms Dry Cleaners

The smoking ban came into effect in July 2007 and till now it succeeded to harm business at pub chains. The smoking ban means people are spending less on their dry cleaning bills.

Its dry cleaning business saw profits fall 28% to £1.8m in the six months to 30 June as customers’ clothes no longer smell of stuffy smoke after a night out.

Johnson has blamed last year’s ban on smoking in pubs for a tumble in profits at its dry cleaning chain. Johnson operates more than 500 stores under the Johnson Cleaners and Jeeves of Belgravia brands. “The smoking ban has now been effective for over 12 months and…This has impacted dry cleaning volumes,” the firm said.

Overall profits at Johnson fell 80% to £400,000 in the six-month period, largely due to a poor performance at the company’s facilities management business, which lost a key client. The group has issued a number of profit warnings after worries about rising levels of debt.

To reduce its borrowings, the firm has sold its corporate clothing division, which made uniforms for Sainsbury’s and Argos. The chief of this firm said: “We are now well positioned to seize commercial opportunities but unfortunately we are not immune to weaknesses in the UK economy, which continues to be difficult.”

Cigarettes Sales Decline and Jobs Cut

R. J. Reynolds announced that they would cut about 570 jobs, or 10 percent of their American work force.

The company expects that the job cuts will save $100 million by the end of 2010 and $55 million a year after that. Employees will begin losing their jobs in the third quarter, but some cuts will take until the end of 2009.

The Altria Group, Reynolds’s bigger rival, which owns Philip Morris USA, said it would buy UST, the maker of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco products, for $10.4 billion. Judy Hong, a Goldman Sachs analyst, said: “The restructuring was a natural move for Reynolds, as the tobacco industry finds ways to cope with declining cigarette sales.”

Researchers showed that Americans are buying 3 to 4 percent fewer cigarettes a year, and the industry has turned to alternatives like chewing tobacco, snuff, cigars and snus (a tobacco pouch meant to be held under the upper lip) for future growth. And also the sales of smokeless tobacco are growing by about 5 to 6 percent a year.

Reynolds’s plans are designed to focus on core businesses and redirect resources to areas of growth. The company will scale back marketing and promotional support for its Kool menthol cigarettes, while increasing the amount it spends on Camel menthol products. Pall Mall will remain one of the company’s growth brands.

The company reported that jobs would be eliminated from both Reynolds American and R. J. Reynolds at the company’s headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., but some jobs lost at the parent company would be filled by employees of the subsidiary.

All positions are under review except those in sales and marketing outside of headquarters and production in Winston-Salem.

Snuff – the Most Profitable Tobacco Product

Researchers reported that the last independent Smokeless Tobacco Company, Swedish Match, can very easy to attract a bid from a cigarettes maker as is Altria.

In a study was shown that snuff consumption is rising in United States while cigarette smoking in the mature markets of Western Europe and the United States is declining.

Snuff, a smokeless tobacco product that it is not as harmful as cigarettes, prompting two takeovers in the last two years.

Snuff is a moist tobacco placed under the upper lip rather than smoked and is Swedish Match’s biggest and most profitable product. But in United States this kind of smokeless tobacco is largely limited.

Scientists said that Lorillard, the third-largest U.S. cigarette maker, which unlike some potential buyers already has a large U.S. distribution network.

Martin Sikorski, an analyst at Cheuvreux, said: “I think that Lorillard could want to buy Swedish Match. If they start to believe that this category could take off, which Altria believes, I think they could come to the conclusion that a lot of money could be saved on co-distribution of snuff and cigarettes.”

Other scientists said that Swedish Match will be a subject for to bid speculation because of its relatively small size, with an equity value of 31 billion Swedish kronor, or $4.6 billion, at a current share price of 121 kronor.

The large cigarette makers like Lorillard, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco have no exposure to smokeless tobacco.

“We do not believe that the proposed acquisition of UST by Altria makes a move on Swedish Match any more imminent,” said David Tovar, an analyst at Merrill Lynch.

Swedish Match gets about half its earnings from snuff and the rest from cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco in addition to matches and lighters.

While smoking is increasing in places like Asia, U.S. cigarette consumption has fallen because of the messages about its health hazards and because of the smoking bans which were implemented in public areas.

In different countries snuff has a different wrapper. For example in Europe snuff comes in pouches much like tiny tea bags.

The European Union banned snuff sales in 1992 amid concerns about oral cancer and other health problems and also because it might encourage smoking, but when Sweden joined the EU in 1995, the nation was given an exemption from the ban.

Last week, the biggest cigarette company in the United States, Altria Group, whose No. 1 brand is Marlboro, agreed to pay $10.3 billion for the largest U.S. smokeless tobacco maker, UST, whose most popular brand is Skoal. That deal will join Altria’s 51 percent share of the cigarette market with UST’s 58 percent share of the smokeless tobacco market in the United States.

According to a study, Swedish Match has 11.8 percent share of the U.S. snuff market, as against 87.5 percent in Sweden, while Lorillard has around 11 percent of the U.S. cigarette market.

Tobacco Farming was a Way of Life

Tobacco growers used to say that tobacco farming wasn’t just a living, but it was also a way of life.

Life has changed for thousands of North Carolina farmers since the tobacco buyout began in 2005, ending the decades-old price-support program and converting the state’s most profitable agricultural industry into a free-market enterprise.

Most of those farmers who have stayed in the business have had to roughly double the number of acres they grow to make up for the reduced profit per acre. As a result, tobacco acreage across the state is up, from 151,400 acres in 2004 to 166,000 this year. To increase their acreage, farmers have had to take on greater debt to buy more machinery and buy or rent more land.

Norman Harrell, an extension agent in Wilson County, declared that farmers are happy to be liberated from the restrictions of the old tobacco program, but they feel like they’re a little more exposed now, financially. Things are better now than they were in 2004.

Beginning in the 1930s, tobacco was grown under a program that kept prices as high as possible by limiting production. Growers could only plant and sell the amount of tobacco for which they owned or rented quota, but if they grew more, they were penalized.

The system worked well for decades. However, by the 1990s, thousands of quota holders were people who had never grown tobacco or had not done so in years but rented their quota to farmers and then passed down the allotment to their children as a source of future income.

American tobacco use also had dropped off, and though international use was growing, so was international production. Cigarette manufacturers had begun to buy tobacco grown in other countries much more cheaply.

The changes hit hard in Eastern North Carolina, where ideal soil conditions helped make it the largest producer of flue-cured tobacco in the United States.

Under the buyout plan, manufacturers agreed to pay growers and quota-holders for their benefits in the support program, with each participant’s share divided into equal payments over 10 years. When the last payment is made in January 2014, it will have cost the companies $10.1 billion.

Production did drop in 2005 and has been gradually rebounding. According to the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, this year, North Carolina is expected to produce 378 million pounds.

Harrell said: “Producers never thought there wouldn’t be any more tobacco grown in North Carolina. The general public may have thought that. But the growers understood the business. They know the quality of leaf that we grow, and they know what the markets are. The growers, prior to 2004, were very much anticipating the buyout with the hope that it would free their operations up to grow like they wanted to. In our area, I think it has done exactly what we wanted - or what was anticipated.”

What wasn’t anticipated was the increase in fuel prices. Besides the gas it takes to run planters and combines, tobacco farmers have to buy fuel to heat their curing barns. It takes five to eight days to cure tobacco in a gas-heated barn at a cost of up to $700 per full barn. On a high-production farm, the barns run nearly nonstop from the time the first leaves are harvested in early July until the tender top leaves come off in October.

There have been some production changes since the buyout. Bigger farms are more mechanized. On some operations, the plants are barely touched by human hands from the time they’re seeded in greenhouses, except when workers go into the fields to remove suckers - young shoots - from the stalk, or to snap off flowers that would rob the leaves of nutrients.

Because of changing tastes, growers now wait later and later to crop the leaves, letting them stay on the stalk for as long as possible to achieve a natural yellow or even brown stage of ripeness. It’s not the way generations of North Carolina tobacco farmers have done it, but today’s grower responds to market demands.

Congress is going to ban flavored cigarettes, except menthols

Congress is fighting over whether to ban this flavored, popular tobacco product.

Mentholated cigarettes were launched in the 1920s with such names as Spud, Listerine, the Original Eucalyptus Smoke and Snowball. Today they are sold as Kool, Newport and Marlboro Menthol, the smokes of choice among the black community.

Critics say these products designed specifically to lure African-American young people into a lifetime of tobacco use and dependence.

While a growing number of cities and states have moved in recent years to ban smoking in restaurants, workplaces and entertainment sites and Congress is moving toward a ban on flavored cigarettes and anything should be done about menthols.

Billy Perry, of Chicago, said he is been smoking Newports for 30 years. Perry said: “It has a better taste and less of the effects of harshness.”

A ban looks like a political pace too far for Congress. The House last month approved a measure that would depute the Food and Drug Administration to ban flavored additives and to regulate tobacco products. Menthol flavoring was exempted in the bill.

The bill passed the House by a wide margin (326 to 102) but the menthol exemption was part of the negotiations to get enough votes to pass the bill. Some House members tried to protect tobacco farmers and others objected to the government having any role in the resolution of tobacco.

One tobacco company, Philip Morris USA, supported the measure but only with the menthol exemption.

Menthol critics point to studies that claim young blacks have been targeted by marketing plans of cigarette manufacturers. Tobacco companies have absolutely denied targeting young people and are lobbying against any ban on menthols, which include about a quarter of all cigarette sales.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly three out of four black smokers buy menthol brands, compared with three of 10 white smokers.

George Karelia and Sons Excellence- HQ of Karelia Company

Karelia, an outstanding tobacco company and a majestic cigarette brand. As a Tobacco Company, Karelia was launched as a family business in 1888 and now it is the greatest
tobacco enterprise in Greece that continues to delight smoking connoisseurs with its tobacco products. Dealing for more than a century on domestic and international cigarette markets, Karelia’s cigarettes are sold successfully on markets of 65 countries.

Karelia Company has the reputation of an enterprise specialized in producing exclusively qualitative cigarettes and is acclaimed as an innovator in producing tobacco products. Recently, this company has brought in a new meritorious brand: George Karelia and Sons Excellence.

George Karelia and Sons cigarette is an illustrious and flagship brand manufactured by Greek company for a long period of time. This smoking product is produced from the best sorts of tobacco combined with luxurious packing making this brand exclusive and alluring.

New flavor, George Karelia and Sons Excellence cigarette is perfect in all respects. Company producer in decided to launch its new brand in the UK domestics and duty free markets at the same time.

Karelia Company has grandiose expectations for this cigarette. George Karelia and Sons Excellence is expected to “surprise and tent” its smokers, because Karelia company surpassed itself in composition of this cigarette brand: Virginia Leaf from North Carolina, Zimbabwe flue-cured and Brazilian Santa Carina tobaccos created an outstanding smoking amalgam. Entire beauty of this cigarette is compacted in elegant carton covered by golden foiled tipping paper.

You can order these and other most premium cigarette brands online at the lowest possible price. Please see cheap Cigarettes List for more details.

Cigars Versus Cigarettes: A Tobacco Showdown

When it comes to tobacco, smokers — sans the snowman and the Sherlock Holmes’ of the world — typically choose cigarettes or cigars. This results in a tobacco war between the two choices: in a scene straight out of West Side Story, one group claims cigarettes are better and one group counters, declaring the cigar’s superiority. Ashes fly, cigars cry on one another’s shoulders, cigarettes filter out, and items get burned.

To the cigar lover, the items that get burned are cigarettes. Cigar lovers believe their cigars are just better. True cigar lovers typically look at cigarettes with a sense of disdain. To them, a lover of tobacco who smokes a cigarette is like a lover of fine food eating things made in an Easy Bake Oven. Some cigarette lovers may disagree, believing that cigarettes are the best choice of smoke, but other cigarette lovers may simply be intimidated by cigars - scared of a Henry Clay or a La Aurora, they find comfort in a Benson and, of course, a Hedges.

It’s hard to blame these people. Cigars can appear scary, like a stick of tobacco lurking in a bedroom closet, waiting for night to fall. Yet, like so many things, the fear of cigars is unwarranted. People can crush cigars in an ashtray, on a sidewalk, or on a garbage can. For this reason, cigars should be more afraid of people than people are of them.

Once cigars are welcomed into the hearts of tobacco lovers, they will usually find they are not intimidating and are just the opposite. Besides providing luxury, cigars offer a handful of other satisfying avenues, avenues that cigarettes get lost going down.

It is because of this that we will now list the top five reasons cigars are better than cigarettes.

1. The Length: Yes, size matters, at least when it comes to tobacco, but size, for the purpose of this argument, isn’t about the physical length of tobacco, it’s about how long it lasts. Cigarettes are short-lived. People often smoke them in ten or fifteen minutes. Cigars, however, last much longer. Smoking is pleasurable and that pleasure is greatly extended when a cigar is ignited.

2. The Sophistication: Sure, cigarettes sometimes look sophisticated, particularly when people smoke them with a cigarette holder ala Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but most of the time, cigars are much more synonymous with sophistication than cigarettes, at least in America. Simply smoking a cigar garners a sense of sophistication, while smoking a cigarette usually requires a prop: a cigarette holder, a top hat, or a monocle.

3. The Variety: I am certain that cigarettes have some sort of variety. If they didn’t, there would be no sense in the several different cigarette brands that exist, but the variety usually consists of certain cigarettes being lighter than others or some having less nicotine than a competing brand. Cigars, on the other hand, instill much more variety. Cigars not only look different, they also smell and taste different - really different. Different cigarette brands taste different, but not to the extent of a cigar. While cigarettes typically don’t travel down the flavor road, cigars do. Different cigars offer extremely different flavors: one cigar may have hints of leather and earth while another one may taste like coffee and chocolate.

4. The Bars: Ah, the cigar bar. Is there any place more welcoming for the seasoned smoker? Cigar Bars are a Mecca for the lover of tobacco, a place they can go for a sense of true luxury. Some Cigar Bars let cigarettes in, welcoming their tobacco-bearing cousins, but true Cigar Bars maintain signs of No (Cigarette) Smoking Allowed. Cigarettes, on the other hand, have no Cigarette Bars to call their own. Well, not unless you count bowling alleys.

5. The Drinks: A lot of cigarette smokers like to couple a smoke with a cup of coffee or an alcoholic drink, but does coupling a cigarette with these types of drink really enhance the experience? If the cigarette has no complementing flavors, probably not. Cigars, on the other hand, go well with drinks. With a variety of flavors, it’s easy to find a cigar that goes well with everything from an espresso to a cognac, from a bottle of scotch to a bottle of wine.

From cigarette smokers to cigar smokers, smokers are on the same side: they all love tobacco. Even so, cigars are a little ahead of their kin: they can’t help themselves; they’re the favorite cousin.

Information provided by: Cheap Cigarettes

Chocolate cigarettes – the biggest selling sweets

The World Health Organization has been so interest with the issue of chocolate cigarettes that it suggested a total ban on their sale.

Health researchers observed that chocolate cigarettes became the biggest selling sweets among children. Anti-smoking campaigners fear that if the cigarettes are passed on to youngsters or if children see adults smoking them, it will tempt them into trying them.

Sheila Duffy, director of information and communications at ASH Scotland said she was disappointed to hear of the return of chocolate cigarettes and advised parents not to allow their children smoke sweet cigarettes.

She added: “While sweetie cigarettes look like harmless fun, research shows that children playing with them are more likely to go on to experiment with real cigarettes. Tobacco is highly addictive and lethal. We need to keep these products well away from children.”

In fact, where there’s smoke, there’s danger. Researchers from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported that smoke sweet cigarettes is no safer - and may be more dangerous - than that of conventional cigarettes.

An analysis of the volunteers’ blood revealed that nicotine levels were significantly higher after they smoked chocolate cigarettes than after ordinary cigarettes. In some cases, the levels of exhaled carbon monoxide were higher too. “Kids think they’re not smoking real cigarettes. Some even think they’ve stopped smoking if they use these alternatives. But these cigarettes are delivering highly toxic compounds,” said Wallace Pickworth, a pharmacologist.

Teens think that sweet cigarettes are less substantial and therefore less noxious.

Anti-smoking researchers said that tobacconists add new flavors to their deadly products in order to improve their taste, and also to attract more smokers to buy it. But they didn’t understand that these kinds of cigarettes are bought by children too, because children like chocolate and sweets.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said she was disturbed about the development and would talk to the states about tackling the problem.

“While smoking rates are dropping, sweet cigarettes open up a dangerous new avenue to attract children to smoking,” she said.

The anti-smoking lobbying group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) said that chocolate cigarettes encourage children to smoke.

“Adding sweets to tobacco is appalling. It shows that we need more tobacco regulation to prevent anything being added that could make tobacco more attractive, or smoother, or easier to use,” said Deborah Arnott, director of ASH.

Health researchers mentioned that should ban on sweeteners and flavorings that are added to cigarettes which are known to make them taste better and make cigarettes easier to smoke.

Information provided by: Best Tobacco

The Most Expansive Cigarette Pack

In today’s world, that of speed and big discoveries, there can be detected a continuous competition after everything that’s new, atypical and exceptional. People change the ordinary things into remarkable, changing its size and quality and representation. Sometimes the limit of the imagination goes far from real world.

The most remarkable discoveries are those that worth millions. Maybe you have heard about the most expensive pizza (3700$), whiskies (38.000$), sandwich (38$), and lure ($1 million). It is a pleasure that really taste expensive.

But one of the most impressive products was new Lucky Strike cigarette pack. Lucky Strike cig is a famous smoking brand produced by British American Tobacco - the second largest tobacco company in the world. Maybe, it really brings luck, thing that make this cigarette producer to create 100,000 packs of cig that cost “some” money. One pack is made from 18ct white gold, with one large diamond and red ruby placed on the top of cigarette pack. Can you imagine how it looks? It’s for sure the most expensive cigarette packs that were ever made in the world. Thanks God that they didn’t produce cigs for this pack. It will become the most expensive smoke. Owning such a brilliant cigarette you will smoke it at very exclusive occasions, if you ever do it.

What about Lucky Strike luxurious pack it will be displayed at special selected European airport during the period of year 2006. It is a part of huge advertisement campaign of one of the best selling product of ABT. This Lucky Strike packs will become an international icon for this smoking tobacco.

Now, the cigarette pack can be already seen in the airport of Frankfurt, in that from Düsseldorf and Munich.This most expensive cigarette pack in the world will be a real treasure for the collectors of cig packs.