Some Interesting Tobacco Industry Statistics

[woodsroad]

TTB Tobacco National Report (Excel Spreadsheet)

Take a look at this (you'll need to have Excel installed).
My first takeaways:

• Domestic snuff production outstrips pipe tobacco production by almost 3:1
• Domestic pipe tobacco production in the US has been cut almost in half since 2012

What do you see?

@sablebrush52
@jguss
@cosmicfolklore

 

[cosmicfolklore]

TTB Tobacco National Report (Excel Spreadsheet)

Take a look at this (you'll need to have Excel installed).
My first takeaways:

• Domestic snuff production outstrips pipe tobacco production by almost 3:1
• Domestic pipe tobacco production in the US has been cut almost in half since 2012

What do you see?

@sablebrush52
@jguss
@cosmicfolklore

People seem to smoke more than I realized in February.... You're going to have to help me on this.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

What types of units are the numbers representing? Is it pounds, dollars, units sold?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Pipe smoking has also been going down dramatically over the last 12 years, dramatically!

Edit: No, I just suck at spreadsheets, haha. I was looking at annual totals on the other years.

 

[woodsroad]

What types of units are the numbers representing? Is it pounds, dollars, units sold?

It says in the left hand column.

 

[woodsroad]

Pipe smoking has also been going down dramatically over the last 12 years, dramatically!

Edit: No, I just suck at spreadsheets, haha. I was looking at annual totals on the other years.

Domestic pipe tobacco production has been cut almost in half since 2012

 

[sablebrush52]

TTB Tobacco National Report (Excel Spreadsheet)

Take a look at this (you'll need to have Excel installed).
My first takeaways:

• Domestic snuff production outstrips pipe tobacco production by almost 3:1
• Domestic pipe tobacco production in the US has been cut almost in half since 2012

What do you see?

@sablebrush52
@jguss
@cosmicfolklore

Unless I'm looking at the wrong row, the decline in pipe tobacco from 2012 through to 2024 is significant, though it looks more like a 30% to 35% drop than 50%, but the general trajectory is significantly downward. One can see where the industry is heading.

Even more of a reason not to spend 4 figures on a pipe. There won't be buyers for it if you try to sell it. Of course, you could always accept a low 2 figures for it.

In any case, I'll be ashes long before the fecal matter hits the spinning blades.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I am more shocked that 33million pounds of pipe tobacco was produced in the US.
I've seen the barrels at La Poche and the videos from C&D... I assumed all pipe tobacco was produced somewhere in a room the size of a double car garage. Millions of pounds? That is way more than I would have guessed. But still, nowhere near cigarette or cigars... cigars are made in the US? I guess they mean those White Owls and such at gas stations?

Also, I notice that there is no significant drop in February of 2018. We lost 1/3rd of the pipe tobacco companies in the US, and yet the numbers don't reflect that. But, maybe I just don't know enough about these numbers.

 

[woodsroad]

Unless I'm looking at the wrong row, the decline in pipe tobacco from 2012 through to 2024 is significant, though it looks more like a 30% to 35% drop than 50%, but the general trajectory is significantly downward. One can see where the industry is heading.

Even more of a reason not to spend 4 figures on a pipe. There won't be buyers for it if you try to sell it. Of course, you could always accept a low 2 figures for it.

In any case, I'll be ashes long before the fecal matter hits the spinning blades.

Would you settle for 40%?

 

[sablebrush52]

Would you settle for 40%?

Sure. It's so much more positive. Regardless, the downward trajectory is both significant, constant, and long term.

 

[Chasing Embers]

You can see the effects of B&M stock. Most of their merchandise is cigars, cigarettes, and dip.

 

[woodsroad]

Sure. It's so much more positive. Regardless, the downward trajectory is both significant, constant, and long term.

These statistics punch a hole in the delusions that the business of pipe tobacco is sustainable as-is. It will likely collapse within the lifetime of many members of this forum.

 

[Elric]

This suggests we need a "Home Growers Manual" written by our esteemed experts.

 

[TriedPiper]

Incomplete data. Domestic stats only. Couldn't it also indicate how much production has moved overseas. No?

 

[jguss]

am more shocked that 33million pounds of pipe tobacco was produced in the US

It is surprising to us, but only because this forum is a bubble, and a small one at that. The majority of pipe smokers aren't chasing artisan pipes or the latest hot drop from Germain.

It's important to note, however, that the database shown above tracks domestic production; it doesn't address imports (other than a de minimis quantity from Puerto Rico), still less does it address consumption. Here's the data presented graphically, with 2024 annualized based on the first nine months of the year:



Clearly there's a downward slurge, but I'm skeptical that consumption dropped sharply when McClelland went out of business. What this suggests to me is the main beneficiary of McClelland's demise wasn't the remaining domestic pipe tobacco producers (i.e. C&D and Sutliff) but pipe tobacco manufacturers based overseas.

Obviously the data indicates that the domestic industry as a whole has taken a beating; to determine to what extent this was a shifting of volume to STG etc vs a drop in end-user demand requires more information. Knowing our government I'm sure pipe tobacco volume consumption over time is tracked somewhere but I'm too lazy to go looking.

 

[sardonicus87]

These statistics punch a hole in the delusions that the business of pipe tobacco is sustainable as-is. It will likely collapse within the lifetime of many members of this forum.

But but but, "the tobacco industry is growing"[citation needed], at least that's what I've seen several claim on forum threads about STG acquiring MB/Sutliff.

 

[woodsroad]

It is surprising to us, but only because this forum is a bubble, and a small one at that. The majority of pipe smokers aren't chasing artisan pipes or the latest hot drop from Germain.

It's important to note, however, that the database shown above tracks domestic production; it doesn't address imports (other than a de minimis quantity from Puerto Rico), still less does it address consumption. Here's the data presented graphically, with 2024 annualized based on the first nine months of the year:

View attachment 356529

Clearly there's a downward slurge, but I'm skeptical that consumption dropped sharply when McClelland went out of business. What this suggests to me is the main beneficiary of McClelland's demise wasn't the remaining domestic pipe tobacco producers (i.e. C&D and Sutliff) but pipe tobacco manufacturers based overseas.

Obviously the data indicates that the domestic industry as a whole has taken a beating; to determine to what extent this was a shifting of volume to STG etc vs a drop in end-user demand requires more information. Knowing our government I'm sure pipe tobacco volume consumption over time is tracked somewhere but I'm too lazy to go looking.

This is why I leave it to smarter and more experienced folks to draw the important distinctions!
Thank you, Jon.

 

[sablebrush52]

Domestic pipe tobacco production has been cut almost in half since 2012

I wonder if the cessation of subsidies accelerated the decline in production.
It’s not surprising considering how many posts there have been that remarked on the loss of tobacco farming in their communities.

 

[jguss]

"the tobacco industry is growing"

I've seen that too, and even if true it's a pointless statement. It blips over the enormous difference between the tobacco industry as a whole and the tiny little mole on its ass that is the pipe tobacco world. My capacity for being indifferent to the irrelevant is boundless. I really, really, really don't care what's happening with the tobacco industry writ large. If I was a cigarette smoker I might, but I also might not. As it is I only care about my miniscule corner of it and its immediate future. And even then my interest is mostly abstract since I have more tobacco then I'm likely to live long enough to smoke. And frankly if I did somehow run out of pipe tobacco I'd enjoy the occasional cigar instead; and if cigars disappeared too I'd find a new vice. I just don't take the purported existential threat as seriously as many other people appear to do, but for anyone who does as has been repeated ad nauseum there is a perfectly easy hedge to the threat of diminishing supply: stock up now.

 

[jguss]

This is why I leave it to smarter and more experienced folks to draw the important distinctions!
Thank you, Jon.

Thank you Dan, that's very (and excessively) kind. My Mom used to tell me that all compliments are ironical; no wonder I have a live-in therapist.