For someone not working in the tobacco industry it is indeed a strange experience to visit the largest tobacco trade fair in the world. It is an industry event strictly unavailable to the public in order to make it possible to hand out samples and advertise products business to business. In this melting pot of producers from all over the world you will not only get to see every nicotine product you can imagine (including habanero flavoured mouth spray and nicotine toothpicks) you will also see certain trends and reflections of business cultures from all over the world.
The main trend this year would be the single use vape pen, also known as the disposable e-cigarette. A pre-loaded electronic cigarette.
From the NNPA perspective we visited and spoke to many producers of nicotine pouches
There were a large number of producers that did have products on display. The profiles ranged from very aware quality producers to the ones who only possibly could be competitive by being low cost or profiling themselves to stand out in other ways. Our conclusion after the fair is that there is a clear trend for some, in particular new producers to find their “unique selling point” in high or in some cases extreme nicotine levels. It was not uncommon to see 50mg pouches and one producer told us “We make 75 and 100mg but we did not bring them”. Even if there are more criteria than milligram per pouch that affects nicotine uptake, it seems to be obvious that some producers use the strength as the most prominent gimmick and selling point.
Even if it is highly unlikely that these excessively strong products would be of any interest to a broader group of users, I would consider this segment problematic. They are in my view an example of trying to compete by indicating an added value that does not respond to an actual demand.
In my opinion this trend creates a clear risk of giving distorted signals to consumers. If you want to replace smoking with nicotine pouches and see a selection of 100mg products on the shelf, a 50mg pouch would appear to be a moderate choice and it is not. Even 25mg would be considered beyond extra strong and unmarketable by most producers. For leading producers, the limit is even lower.
There could be made an argument that nicotine users will have different preferences and that some would like a high nicotine content to get a “kick” in order to emulate the effect of smoking and that these producers are only doing what is legally permitted. However, even with a view to these valid concerns, competition driven by extreme nicotine levels would be of benefit to very few consumers.
NNPA left Intertabac with a clear opinion: If this glimpse of the horizon of the market gives any indication of the future development of nicotine pouches there is no need to extrapolate further. We consider a cap on nicotine content to be a necessary limitation to avoid unsound competition on the one factor that could increase the potential health risks of the product. While waiting for regulations we encourage all producers to limit the amount of nicotine and to leave this potentially harmful strategy to gain competitive advantages in fringe groups of the market.