Organic European Tobacco

[Wu Wei Wu]

A farmer acquaintance and I have been talking. He grows organic tobacco. He knows I used to be in the industry on the sales side.

Next month he is planning next year's crop. Far as I know he doesn't use any chemicals and is one of the only tobacco producers in continental Portugal (there are a few but reaching them is tough).

It's almost a certainty I'll be invited to collaborate if I want, but whether that means consulting, investment, or wholesaling I don't know.

If I could source European Organic tobacco, would there be any interest from the community here? If we can line up Europeans who say they are interested we can I can advise increasing the scale of production. Tobacco is a high risk, high reward crop so assurances are important.

About Portuguese tobacco: It's very light and the flavors are not as sweet and sophisticated as North American tobacco. The two big kinds are, of course, Virginia and Burley. We might be able to improve the nicotine strength by importing North American Virginia seeds or it might just be the soil here. There's also Azorean tobacco which is typically very strong, though if you want to reach farmers there you have to go in person.

Sweetness and flavor could be improved by the use water mixed sugars from various fruits, of which Portugal has a great quantity with incredible quality. Those are called casings.

As far as Organic tobacco goes, Portuguese is not as good as North American. It is produced in the EU though, so we can market is as an Agricultural good and so drive down costs. We'd be selling it by the leaf; We can cut it ahead of time and make cartons but then we have to deal with the Portuguese regulatory system. I don't know how difficult this would be.

We can also source manual and electric shredders and rollers, though I'm not sure how good a price we could get on the electric goods.

I think the benefits of producing organic tobacco in the EU are clear from a cost perspective.

So tell me, forum members, would any of you be interested? Do any of you have advice?

 

[Goemon_]

In France, buying tabacco from a distance is apparently forbidden since the 5th of december 2014 and you can get 5 years of prison for doing that !
You have do buy it in tabacco shop and nowhere else.
Or you can buy 1 kg when you travel in another european country.
Or you can buy 250 gr when you travel outside of europe.

So I think you can count out French residents.

My 2 cents.

 

[HiThere]

It is legal to import 500 g of tobacco at a time from abroad to Norway, if the casings are marked with warnings of health danger and content, see attachment.

The tobacco must not contain more than the following amounts of tar/nicotine/carbon monoxide:

10 mg tar
1 mg nicotine
10 mg carbon monoxide

I would be interested in becoming a regular purchaser of tobacco, including the Azorean tobacco if that becomes an option. :)

 

[casper]

The same thing is in Croatia, it is considered organized crime, criminal association and corruption.
Penalties are financially very high.

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

These are important comments.

Do these restrictions apply to tobacco? Or to tobacco products? Or to agricultural products?

They are all different categories.

If France bans imports on tobacco products, oh well, you can still ship it as an agricultural good as whole leaf. It would fall under the same category as shipping mint leaves and whatnot.

But if they ban tobacco the plant, that makes things harder. I didn't even know the EU countries could do that.

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

As for sizes we're looking at 250 gram boxes to make it easier for clients to import.

 

[Goemon_]

These are important comments.

Do these restrictions apply to tobacco? Or to tobacco products? Or to agricultural products?

They are all different categories.

If France bans imports on tobacco products, oh well, you can still ship it as an agricultural good as whole leaf. It would fall under the same category as shipping mint leaves and whatnot.

But if they ban tobacco the plant, that makes things harder. I didn't even know the EU countries could do that.

I really don't think so because it is illegal to grow it for yourself.
If you grow some tabacco you have to sell it to the state.

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

These are important comments.

Do these restrictions apply to tobacco? Or to tobacco products? Or to agricultural products?

They are all different categories.

If France bans imports on tobacco products, oh well, you can still ship it as an agricultural good as whole leaf. It would fall under the same category as shipping mint leaves and whatnot.

But if they ban tobacco the plant, that makes things harder. I didn't even know the EU countries could do that.

I really don't think so because it is illegal to grow it for yourself.
If you grow some tabacco you have to sell it to the state.

Wow that's crazy. I googled around but couldn't find much info. It's all in French. Someone should check that out; I know that Laura and crew smoke, so I wonder how they get there tobacco since I bet they're fairly picky.

 

[Keyhole]

I would definitely be interested in this. Earlier on this year we imported 3.5kg organic canadian and virginia in from the USA. Here in the UK there are currently no regulations concerning importing whole-leaf tobacco. When in its whole leaf form, it is not classed as a manufactured product and therefore cannot be regulated.

It would be interesting to see if any of the other UK residents are interested?

 

[casper]

Croatia
Within the personal luggage can be entered the following products in prescribed quantities with exemption from customs duties:

a) tobacco and tobacco products: 200 cigarettes or 100 cigarillos (cigars weighing up to 3 g each) or 50 cigars or 250g of tobacco smoking, that is, proportional to the combination of the two batches of tobacco products;



Tobacco Act in Croatian,link:

https://translate.google.hr/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=hr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zakon.hr%2Fz%2F242%2FZakon-o-duhanu&edit-text=

 

[liam1310]

I would definitely be interested in this. Earlier on this year we imported 3.5kg organic canadian and virginia in from the USA. Here in the UK there are currently no regulations concerning importing whole-leaf tobacco. When in its whole leaf form, it is not classed as a manufactured product and therefore cannot be regulated.

It would be interesting to see if any of the other UK residents are interested?

I would be interested its the same here in Ireland as the UK no regulations on importing whole leaf tobacco

 

[Wu Wei Wu]

Croatia
Within the personal luggage can be entered the following products in prescribed quantities with exemption from customs duties:

a) tobacco and tobacco products: 200 cigarettes or 100 cigarillos (cigars weighing up to 3 g each) or 50 cigars or 250g of tobacco smoking, that is, proportional to the combination of the two batches of tobacco products;



Tobacco Act in Croatian,link:

https://translate.google.hr/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=hr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zakon.hr%2Fz%2F242%2FZakon-o-duhanu&edit-text=

But Imports themselves are illegal?

This is turning out to be more complicated than expected, though its nice to know other countries are a go. Notably on France I read a 2014 article saying the only kind of tobacco practice to make progress is Rolling your own cigars, which presumably means that there aren't limits on whole leaf tobacco, but that's all inference. I haven't found any documentation that explicitly says that.

 

[Esote]

There already is a Portuguese company selling tobacco leaves (natural and without chemicals but not organic) and sending them to France and other countries in Europe or elsewhere. It is labeled 'agricultural product' and seems legal.
I am waiting for an answer from this company to be sure that it is really legal.
If it is, I'd be interested in next year crop from your farmer acquaintance, Wu Wei Wu.
I'll let you know...

 

[Can Won]

Hi Wu Wei Wu,

I live in the UK and have been buying whole leaf tobacco for a while now from a seller up in Manchester.

I particularly enjoy the whole process of shredding, etc (except when the shredder starts playing up! I've got a couple of coins wedged in to hold the cogs in place at the moment so it's definitely time to invest in a new one :))

So yep, you can put me down as interested...

 

[Mr. Premise]

Some things to consider. As for the strength, I assume you mean nicotine content, the higher the nitrogen content in the soil the higher the nicotine. Sun and heat have an effect, too, but that shouldn't be a problem in Portugal. For all the regulatory issues mentioned, I would think selling unprocessed whole leaf would be the way to go. Otherwise you'd have to engineer the product to fit within the EU's tar and nicotine range.

How much is this person prepared to grow. For regular varieties, you can calculate about five plants to a pound of cured whole leaf. A heavy smoker (pack a day) will consume around ten pounds a year. A regular cigarette usually has no more than .75g of tobacco in it

As for varieties, you should grow 70% Virginia types (flue cured varieties) 15% or more Burley and the rest Turkish. Given that you're in Portugal, the conditions might be really good for Turkish. Turkish adds a nice mild spicy component, which really helps with additive-free since you can't add flavorings. Burley balances out the high pH of the Virginia and gives the blend a deeper, chocolate flavor and adds nicotine and "throat hit." Burley is also really easy to cure. Curing will be your biggest challenge especially at that scale. Virginia varieties should be flue cured, which can be more difficult, but you can get by with air curing them. Aging is also important. Turkish types are more labor intensive since the leaves are much smaller (1/10th the size) but you can plant them much closer together.

PM me if you go forward with this. I know of a great wholesaler of tobacco seeds here in the US who carries lots of good varieties.