Thanks for the mea culpas on our behalf. Decisions have been made. The US market at least has been informed. What's there left to talk about?
Questions for Leonardw
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What would be helpful would be ideas and data about other options that can actually be put into place other than building a barn to season tobacco and buying fields to grown your own. I've tasted home grown and it is not a true option.
Since STG doesn’t seem to care about the US market, when will they be completely pulling out of it since we’re not a profitable market?
Yes, I agree. But these are not "questions for LeonardW"
And all the pull offs on the 14 are on the wrong side of the road.
Agreed, which is why we have a different thread for that. But neither are the School Board meeting rants helpful as well. Perhaps another thread should be started - Here's a Brick Wall - Beat your head on it at will.
I was gonna say, like not to be a party pooper but these people goin "oh ima just go out and grow my own old dark fired next year" like.... noooo. Lol, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works
There's a reason that some of the oldest most successful companies in this STILL use leaf that's already been grown, cured, processed, cased, etc by other people. Like yeah you can grow tobacco yourself but it's a damn finicky plant and at the end unless you have about 5k sqft of industrial space, 100 years of method, and additive industry contacts in your back pocket.. if you're damn lucky AND had a good season on fertile ground you're gonna prob end up with something approximating gambler tube-cut lol
I'll answer as best I can... and it's still going to seem like a big "screw you" and corporate B.S.
Below is what I posted on the pipe forum we host. It repeats a lot of what I've said on this thread:
As it pertains to the U.S. portfolio, Sutliff sells 988 items (including items from the Mac Baren family). That is a very, very large portfolio. For reference, the Lane portfolio, which does far more volume, has about 125 items. 700 of their items sell less than 100 lbs. annually. This is a very, very small amount. Only about 30 items sell more than 1,000 lbs. per year. Anything under that would be considered small batch in a modern factory.
The Sutliff facility is comparatively small, older and well suited for during short production runs for the U.S. market. The STG facility in Denmark has extra capacity and well suited for long production runs to serve the needs of pipe smokers in more than 70 countries around the globe. Plus there is the Mac Baren facility, also in Denmark, that is sort of a mix between the STG and Sutliff facilities.
So I was faced with a conundrum. Maintaining three pipe tobacco factories was never going to be a financially viable option. Producing small batch items at STG's facility will not work with our current setup. The other two facilities do not have the capacity to produced the combined portfolios.
Based on this and multiple other factors, I recommended that we discontinue the majority of the Sutliff portfolio. STG followed my advice. The Sutliff produced items that we are keeping will ultimately be produced in Denmark. The Mac Baren items we are keeping will also be produced in Denmark. No Lane items are being discontinued (we discontinued low volume items from 2018 - 2020). I don't have the full list of the Sutliff/Mac Baren items we are keeping right now, but will in the coming weeks.
So, not good news - even that 988th item is someone's favorite blend - but those are the facts. I did not take these decisions lightly. I knew full well that in making my recommendation it would almost certainly lead to closure of the Sutliff factory. This was indeed the case, and last month I stood in front of those employees as the STG representative when the announcement was made.
Pipe tobacco is a profitable but declining category. In the past 15 years, companies like McClelland and Daughters & Ryan have chosen to cease operations. Larger companies such as Reynold's, Altadis, Swedish Match, and now Mac Baren, have decide to walk away from pipe tobacco. In each of these latter cases, STG has stepped in and it is only because of this that many of the brands and blends we love still exist. As painful as it has been, I believe the decisions I've made are what's best not simply for my company, but for the long term health of the pipe tobacco category.
In fact I actually acquired the recipe for London dock from the woman who handled the offices at Daughters & Ryan before they got chopped. I PM'd @ChasingEmbers about it years ago. I have it still, written in her own hand with a beautifully kind note. It's compeltely useless to me.
I stocked all their proper tobacccos that went into the blend beforehand, even the discontinued ramback. Why can't I make it? Because one of the flavoring additives comes from an industrial food chemical company that requires an EIN (which I do have) and a $10k minimum (220 gallon) first order lmao... yeah, I'll have to live without ever tasting London dock unfortunately lol.
I stocked all their proper tobacccos that went into the blend beforehand, even the discontinued ramback. Why can't I make it? Because one of the flavoring additives comes from an industrial food chemical company that requires an EIN (which I do have) and a $10k minimum (220 gallon) first order lmao... yeah, I'll have to live without ever tasting London dock unfortunately lol.
Let 'em rant. It's only off base if it turns into a personal attack on @leonardw . The man has a lot of cojones to stand up here and say, "I was the guy.". Much respect for that.
Im not a big MB smoker so it does not severely impact me here in the EU. We cant get Stuliff anyway.
I do like some of the HH blends such as HH latakia flake. Is it history...and the other HH tins?
Most of the other things I smoke are the HU blends made by Kopp or some Ratrays...made by kopp. I buy a few Dan tobaccos but only a few.
Im curious more than anything.
Then, you’ve not tasted good homegrown. But, you’re allowed you opinions, albeit wrong.
Unfortunately not from what I'm seeing. I remember smoking Old Dark Fired at a Chicago show years back and loving it. I was surprised to see that in Germany, the second biggest pipe tobacco market on the planet, it sells less than 250 lbs. per year.
That stat is just crazy to me. I wonder how many amongst us buy more pipe tobacco for smoking and/or cellaring within a year than these individual blends could muster in sales....
It wouldn't surprise me if sales of HH Old Dark Fired were more than that in the USA. Considering that a typical C&D "small batch" release is about a US ton of tobacco (16,000 2-oz tins). Maybe more than a ton, but these small batch releases get sold very quickly. Meanwhile the fabled and legendary HH blends sat on the shelves.
Obv every single person is gonna have a different opinion/gripe so mine is worth less than nothing.
But I guess I just don't see why the sutliff factory couldn't have remained open. Obv one of the Denmark factories had to close. And even move those few best producing blends overseas and downsize staff too. But based on what you're saying there's still dozens of blends that sold over a ton per year not to mention all the limited/special editions which you prob could've charged double for and made 3 times as much of and it still would've sold here. (Cringle flake sells out in 12 hours then is being happily bought the next day on tinbids at $35 a pop) Not to mention the wholesale blender business.
I mean again what's done is done and i know nothing of the numbers so I'm basically just farting in the wind, but it seems to me that just nuking the entire US market other than captain black and capstan blue (i think you're gonna find that's prob gonna be the result of this) doesn't seem like a healthy middle ground even from a purely business standpoint.
But I guess I just don't see why the sutliff factory couldn't have remained open. Obv one of the Denmark factories had to close. And even move those few best producing blends overseas and downsize staff too. But based on what you're saying there's still dozens of blends that sold over a ton per year not to mention all the limited/special editions which you prob could've charged double for and made 3 times as much of and it still would've sold here. (Cringle flake sells out in 12 hours then is being happily bought the next day on tinbids at $35 a pop) Not to mention the wholesale blender business.
I mean again what's done is done and i know nothing of the numbers so I'm basically just farting in the wind, but it seems to me that just nuking the entire US market other than captain black and capstan blue (i think you're gonna find that's prob gonna be the result of this) doesn't seem like a healthy middle ground even from a purely business standpoint.
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