HEADLINES

• Organised criminals target Scots smokers with illegal cigarettes
• Wholesaler Palmer & Harvey to ‘close gap’ with cash & carry tobacco price
• Imperial launches a new cigarette brand for women
• Study: Graphic warning labels reduce demand for cigarettes
• 'Governator' flouts Austrian smoking law

• Organised criminals target Scots smokers with illegal cigarettes

  About one in 12 cigarettes in Scotland is made and sold illegally - funding criminal activities and costing the government millions of pounds in lost tax revenue.

  A survey found that smokers in Paisley bought the highest proportion of illegal cigarettes at 13.7 per cent, while in Glasgow one in ten cigarettes is not bought from legal sources.

  In Scotland as a whole, 7.6 per cent of cigarettes are illegal, according to the survey, which analysed discarded cigarette packets in major cities in the final three months of last year. 

  It estimates that illegal cigarettes cost the UK £2.2 billion in annual tax revenue.

  Previously, illegal cigarettes were genuine UK brands smuggled from lower-priced EU countries, but are now increasingly coming from further afield. Many are "illicit whites", manufactured specifically to be smuggled into the UK and are sold at a street price of £2.50 to £3 per packet - less than half the average UK price.

  Scotland, along with the rest of the UK, is seen as a lucrative target for cigarette smugglers, due to high domestic duty on cigarettes. 

  Sheila Duffy, chief executive of Ash Scotland, said: "Illicit tobacco can blight communities and criminals don't ask for proof of age. But while the illicit trade is a genuine problem that requires co-ordinated action from a range of enforcement agencies, it is important to remember that the tobacco industry scaremongers over the illicit trade at every opportunity." 

  Source: The Scotsman - 09 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pJ7GjM

• Wholesaler Palmer & Harvey to ‘close gap’ with cash & carry tobacco price

  Palmer & Harvey has vowed to match the price of cigarettes in cash & carries to offset a 4.55% decline in full-year tobacco sales following the loss of business from Somerfield, Wine Cellar and Threshers.

  Aside from these structural losses, P&H's tobacco sales rose 5.2% in the year to 2 April. Finance director Jon Moxon admitted there had also been a volume decline because of the competitive pricing from C&Cs, although this had been partly offset by price increases. "We've been cheaper than other delivered wholesalers but more expensive than C&Cs," he said. "We're about to close the gap." 

  Source: The Grocer - 06 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/q3M1JC

• Imperial launches a new cigarette brand for women

  Imperial Tobacco has become the third major cigarette supplier to launch a brand targeted at women in just four months.

  Richmond Superslims are the latest piece of new product development (NPD) to hit the market ahead of the introduction of the ­tobacco display ban for larger stores next April.

  The product, which is being heralded as the UK's first superslim brand in the value-priced cigarette sector, rolled out to stores this week and is available in standard and menthol 20 packs priced £6.16, the same price as Richmond Superkings.

  The standard pack is embossed with a pink design that is replaced by a mint green version on the menthol variety.

  As with similar recent launches from BAT and Philip Morris - Vogue Perle and Virginia S by Raffles respectively - the new packs are clearly designed to appeal to female smokers.  

  Source: The Grocer - 06 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/r5v5lJ

• Study: Graphic warning labels reduce demand for cigarettes

  A sample of 404 adult smokers from four US states participated in an experimental auction on cigarette packs with four different kinds of warning labels. All packs carried the same message: smoking causes mouth cancer.

  The first pack featured a text-only message on the side of the pack, the current US policy. The second had a text-only message that covered 50 percent of the lower half of the front, back and one side of the pack. A third had the same text message, but with a photo depicting mouth cancer. The fourth package had the same text and graphic photo, but was a mostly unbranded pack, meaning all color and symbolic brand elements were removed except for the brand's font, size and descriptors.

  "We found that the label with just the front text warning had little effect on consumers," says study co-author Matthew Rousu, professor of economics at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa.

  "However, demand was significantly lower for packs with grotesque images, with the lowest demand associated with the plain, unbranded pack."

  The bids for cigarette packs that had a grotesque photo and no brand imagery received bids that were 17 percent lower than the bids for the package with the current US warning label.

  "Regulators should also consider health warnings with graphic pictures, but also plain packaging policies for tobacco products," says Rousu, who conducted the study with James F. Thrasher, David Hammond, Ashley Navarro and Jay R. Corrigan. "Color and brand imagery can support false beliefs about reduced risks of some brands."

  Source: Medical Xpress - 08 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oHv00h

• 'Governator' flouts Austrian smoking law

  Ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been fined 200 euros twice for puffing his cigar at two Austrian airports.

  The offences took place at Graz and Salzburg during a visit to his mother country in June, reported the Krone Zeitung.

  The former Mister Universe and actor-turned politician may get away without paying the $280 penalties as Austria and the United States have no cooperation agreement on these type of offences.

  Source: Herald Sun - 09 August 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pIgWyK