Kudos for Distributon, Availability

[brightleaf]

I couldn't find much available information on J.F. Germain & Son. The name implies that it is a small family business. They have their business on a small island off the coast of France. The fact they do not expand their business and increase production doesn't mean it is because the quality would decrease if they do. They might actually improve their quality if they had better tools to get the job done in a timely and efficient manner. I also didn't find them complaining about not being able to buy the supplies they wanted. I do not see Germain Tobacco being a good example of a need to keep production small. Why is them producing small quantities good for business? The only reason I know of is because it creates an unsatisfied demand, and people thinking that if it is hard to get it must be worth it.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

Or,@brightleaf, they might alternatively be producing all they can, running extra shifts, and in the midst of dramatic expansion plans geared toward the apparently insatiable Chinese market, where I am told many buyers of Stonehaven and Penzance reside. Or they might be barely hanging on, producing only what they can when their ancient employees rheumatsm allows then to come to work and run the decrepit machinery. We simply do not know. They are, AFAIK, a private company and not obliged to tell any of us anything.
I do know that early this summer a young man on one of the Facebook pipe groups posted a picture of himself standing in front of a table at a jobs fair with a very professional banner behind it reading "J.F Germain & Son." He said he applied for a job there. No word on whether he got it.

 

[brightleaf]

I did see on their website that they mainly distribute to Germany, Italy and the U.K. It doesn't matter to me what they do with their business, I just don't think the quantity of tobacco produced by a company is indicative of quality. I am sure J.F. Germain & Son are not the only ones that can use their recipes with success. I have no doubt a larger company could produce a product just as good. In the spirit of this thread, I am thankful for the companies that produce enough for all of our pipes. That doesn't mean I am hateful to tobacco companies that don't cater to the U.S. market.

 

[cigrmaster]

I had a discussion about a year and a half ago with the guy who owned payless pipes and cigars. He told me that he had visited the Germain operation and that they employ only 6 people. He said it has been that way for years and that they had no desire to expand. He talked like someone who was pissed off that he could never get enough of their product and it was a pain in the ass carrying it and always being out of stock.
Sasquatch, please don't even think that Mc's running out of 5100 for the first time in the 20 odd years I have known about that blend and that of the situation with Germain. That is one analogy that won't fly.

 

[sasquatch]

It's not an analogy. Why did they "run out"? Why don't the great vinyards expand, hire more people, and dominate the market?

 

[cigrmaster]

sasquatch,

It's not an analogy. Why did they "run out"? Why don't the great vinyards expand, hire more people, and dominate the market?

McClelland ran out because there was a bad crop. Instead of using tobacco not up to their standards they made a decision to stop making a certain blend and not jeopardize their stellar reputation by putting out an inferior product. They still have tons of other blends to sell and keep their customers happy.
As far as hiring more people to dominate the market like you propose, I say they have already done that and have been doing it for years.

 

[sablebrush52]

Well this is an interesting discussion. Harris, the problem with the "more is better" and "expand, expand, expand" philosophy is that it often leads to bankruptcy through over expansion and leveraging. The American economic road is littered with the corpses of businesses that over built and then collapsed. And when markets change, whether through changes in consumer demand, or changes in technology, huge companies can't always negotiate the headwinds of that change. Sears and Kodak are two venerable companies that took it in the economic shorts.
Germain's is a small business that has been around for about two hundred years, and they turn out their blends on ancient equipment, using ancient techniques, and for all I know, ancient workers, to produce their unique products. Change the production line and you change the product. They can sell all that they make, and apparently that's enough for their economic well being. It's not their fault that they make products in small batches that everybody thinks they want. Moreover, some products are more involved to make than others. If anyone could produce an exact match for the Germain's blends they would be doing it. Not that I like all of Germain's products, not by a long shot. I find their wretched version of Balkan Sobranie thoroughly disgusting, and a lot of the Esoterica blends are a snooze.
Big isn't necessarily better. Imagine McDonald's making Romanee Conti. Often, big is mediocre, "good enough", because that's more profitable. With all of the consolidation in the tobacco industry, growers are getting screwed at market. Eventually they'll stop growing tobacco and start growing something else that rewards them better.
I'm done chasing unicorns. The cellar has enough unicorns. I appreciate readily available blends. It's great to have some many great choices (for now) from which to choose. I'm just as happy smoking Chatham Manor as smoking Stonehaven, often happier because CM always delivers a pleasant smoke, while Stonehaven can be very hit or miss. And If I want to smoke CM I just have to load up a bowl, not prep, nor sacrifice a virgin to the Stonehaven god.

 

[echambers]

My challenge is that I live in a state that most sites don't ship too so i am pretty limited. And the tobacco tax is ridiculous! Fortunately I travel a lot so get to shop a lot of BNMs. Still, it sucks when I see something I really want that I can only find on a site that won't ship to my state!

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

@cigrmaster, Payless does not order from Germains. They order from Arango. And Germain has a long standing relationship with Planta. How much of their ingredients, and in what form, could be processed and brought in from Germany and the label claim Made in Jersey still be permissible?
It would be enlightening to know the amount of ET imported in the last year of Buteras ownership of the contract and the amount Arango brought in in 2017. My money says it is more - by a lot. And that the six elderly employees operating decrepit machinery being the sole source of their product is not the whole story. Not even close.

 

[sasquatch]

The question I asked wasn't about McClelland's (I agree, they are fabulous, they supply the market well, a well-run, well-organized top-tier company with top-tier product) but about wine: So I'll ask it more directly. This IS an analogy: If the 2012 Lagar de Bezana Syrah was so good, why did they make so little? I mean, all they'd have to do is "ramp up", right?

 

[cigrmaster]

Jesse, the only thing I smoke from Esoterica is Stonehaven and I have plenty. I am only relaying what I was told and who that source was. I could personally care less how Germain runs their business, as it has no effect on my smoking. I have just watched from afar at all the hand wringing that goes on about their inability to supply the market. As a business person I just wonder as to the why they have never really expanded( only what I was told), maybe leaving a bunch of money on the table. Some companies are not set up for expansion and that is fine. There are tons of small mom and pops who like the business they have and have no desire to take risks to grow. My capitalistic tendencies always looks for what could be, not what is.
Sasquatch, from the little I know about wine, I would assume that every crop is a one time thing as grapes are not stored like tobacco. I would assume a 2012 Syrah had so many grapes and therefore so many bottles.

 

[sasquatch]

Carry the analogy forward to tobacco.
Not all crops are wonderful. Not all latakia is smoked the same. Not all virginias are identically sweet.
These guys make any number of tobaccos which are irreplicable by even themselves, let alone by other companies. I doubt they simply forgot the recipe for Kingfisher? I think it's more likely some ingredient or process is tough to come by. If Penzance was just another latakia blend... we wouldn't all be willing to chew our arms off for it.
My suggestion is that Germain's production is a lot more like wine (which I also know nothing about!) and a lot less like the production of giant tobaccos as we know it - Captain Black is the same, pouch after pouch, because it's easy to make from lowest-common-denominator ingredients. Germain's stuff isn't. Could they ramp up? Maybe they could have. For sure they decided not to, for any number of reasons perhaps. Perhaps product integrity is the chief of those?

 

[sasquatch]

LOL I'd rather ask Germain's why they make so much horrible stuff like Ramsgate!

 

[craiginthecorn]

I appreciate the spirit of this thread. I can rattle off several companies that keep us steadily supplied with great tobaccos at fair prices -- Peter Stokkebye, GL Pease (C&D, actually, I believe), McClelland (as availability of raw ingredients permits), and yes, STG and MacBaren/Sutliff, too. I also appreciate that Samuel Gawith had the wisdom to see that merging with Gawith Hoggarths was in everyone's best interest, so many of their boutiquey blends are generally available.
As for the Unicorn Blends sold by companies like Esoterica Tobacciana and Germain, well, they are great blends on average. I think it's kind of fun to have SOME things that are hard to get. It keeps life interesting. I remember when it was exciting to score a can of Coors or Olympia in Chicago!
I do wish that more tobacconists and online retailers would limit customer order quantities in order to reduce hoarding. And let's face it, most of these hoarders hoard more than they will smoke -- some purely to profit from resale. I recently was in San Diego and dropped into Liberty Tobacco -- a great local pipe store. As luck would have it, they had received a shipment of several varieties in bags and a couple in tins. The bags were sold by the ounce as bulk and customers were limited to 2oz of each variety per visit. I bought my limit of 2 oz of each and one tin of each. A few days later, I stopped back on my way to the airport. There was still some of each variety left. Miraculous!
For those who gripe about the trickle of supply from Esoterica, I'll point out that their tobaccos remain a relative bargain with MSRPs for 2oz tins that are essentially the same price as the 50g tins from others. They're not using the tight supply to boost their prices.

 

[brightleaf]

"Big isn't necessarily better. Imagine McDonald's making Romanee Conti."

This statement only implies that the manufacturer is different and the product is the same. I guess the idea of paying 1,000s of dollars for a bottle of McDonald's wine is beyond your imagination. If it was sold for 8 dollars would it taste as good?

There seems to be some people here who think that tobacco blending is an alchemical art. I can appreciate that in a fun childish sense, but I wouldn't pretend that on a job application to a tobacco company. What aspects of making a blend do you think are so mysterious that only one or two blenders can accomplish the feat? What can the little guy do better?

 

[sasquatch]

Well, again, Brightleaf, if making Kingfisher (as just one example of terribly rare, out of production, highly sought after tobacco that nothing else is exactly like (or even very close really)) is so easy, why doesn't everyone do it? People are paying 100 dollars a tin. If you could bang out a Kingfisher clone, you could get rich, so off you go everyone!
No takers? Cuz you don't know how? Yeah, neither do I.
I don't know that it's "alchemical" but generally speaking, recipes and techniques are blender specific and quite secret. Could I blend up a Va/Per/Bur? Hell yeah. You take some virginia, some perique, some burley. I mean, there it is, Squatchfisher. Or Penzsquatch.
There's tobacco blending competitions every year - let's recreate Balkan Sobranie! Except absolutely no one was able to. They got close. Why couldn't they all just get it dead on?
I think most of us don't know the answer to that. I'll say this - I had a chat with Russ Oullette once about what went into Black House. I left thinking "Holy crap, I know nothing about tobacco and blending." and I think that's the case for most of us. Easy to cry "We want more of blend X" but a lot harder to produce it just so.

 

[mso489]

This is a great discussion! I'm learning a lot. Just a footnote or two. C&D now a part of SPC, is small enough to do significant parts of the processing by hand apparently as all-hands projects, and they still manage to keep their most popular blends in good supply. I don't think any of these operations is at a corporate scale, even if the businesses are incorporated. I wouldn't look at any tiny shop and disrespect their product because they don't increase the scale. I start out appreciating the unicorn hunt. I only want to recognize the outfits of various sizes that mange to provide distribution and availability. I/we tend to take them for granted rather than celebrate that characteristic. I mostly smoke the available, because it is available, and enjoy a unicorn or two when I can. When Tabac-Manil was first written up in a feature story in the national press, I was intrigued but thought, there's a leaf I'll never get to smoke unless I go over there and buy it on site. Within months, it became available online in the U.S. and has remained so ever since, and it is one of my favorites. Enough of my jabber. This is a great thread. Please carry on!

 

[fitzy]

Excellent topic MSO!
Thank god for McClelland and Peter Stokkebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[sablebrush52]

"Big isn't necessarily better. Imagine McDonald's making Romanee Conti."

This statement only implies that the manufacturer is different and the product is the same. I guess the idea of paying 1,000s of dollars for a bottle of McDonald's wine is beyond your imagination. If it was sold for 8 dollars would it taste as good?

There seems to be some people here who think that tobacco blending is an alchemical art. I can appreciate that in a fun childish sense, but I wouldn't pretend that on a job application to a tobacco company. What aspects of making a blend do you think are so mysterious that only one or two blenders can accomplish the feat? What can the little guy do better?

I guess you're reading impaired, since your commentary doesn't follow what I wrote. And as for my imagination, kiddo, I've been making a pretty good living from it longer than you have been sentient. And this assumes that you have ever been sentient.
The point is simple, even simpler than you, and it is not about dollars, dollars weren't mentioned. It's about the kind of attention and care that can be given to making a top quality, or luxury, item. Not everything can be reduced to widgets. I know that there are some who believe otherwise, and they're welcome to do so and I welcome them to prove it. Many things can be mass produced well, but not everything can be mass produced well.
As for blending, if, as you say, it's so simple, even simpler than you, prove it by producing a match for Penznace, or Dunbar, or Balkan Sobrainie, or 759, or some other form of unobtainium and prove it.

 

[brightleaf]

I am in no position to make a blend as a match. I do not have the original blend to clone, nor a well stocked kitchen of tobacco ingredients to attempt it. I also cannot recreate a fancy French dessert, I am not a chef, nor do I have a well stocked cabinet of spices and ingredients. To say that an accomplished chef cannot recreate that dessert is hard to take seriously. Even master painters have their work copied by other artists, who can sell them as originals and make thousands, even fooling museums. But tobacco blending seems to be more like cooking than fine art. Why a clone hasn't been created may not be because it is impossible, but because it is still being produced. I'd imagine that most blenders would respect the family owned small business and not intentional step on their toes. I think their is some pride in being able to come up with an original blend that is highly acclaimed .
I have no doubt that their recipe is secret, but that doesn't mean it requires much skill to produce. In fact I still don't see the relation of quality to speed of production or quantity. There are plenty of high grade products that are produced and distributed widely. No one answered the question of what great effort a small tobacco producer can offer to their product that a larger producer misses out on.
Sablebrush what do you have against McDonald's? Do you really think they can't make a quality product? By 2010 they have served over 247 billion burgers, many to repeat customers. Their coffee is good and even better than Starbucks if you buy their McCafes. You can get grilled onions and bacon on any burger and have free wifi while you dine. If they weren't good they wouldn't be a worldwide phenomenon. I think the reason they don't sell bottles of wine for thousands of dollars is because people would instantly realize that there is no amount of special attention to a bottle of wine that justifies asking that price. Even if it had a bedtime story read to the cask every night it aged.