Update on the STG Closure Of Sutliff and Mac Baren

[sardonicus87]

In the business world if you are forced to make a Sophie’s choice it generally means letting the uglier kid die. In practice that means the less profitable blend. So if Nightcap has relatively attractive margins and relatively significant volume then it’ll survive. If not, off to oblivion it goes. Note that while there’s almost certainly a numeric threshold relative performance plays a role too; this is where capacity (and other) constraints come into play.

Just wanted to highlight this part... attractive MARGINS.

Sometimes popular things get dumped and people don't understand why... popularity of a product is far less important than profitability, and margins play a direct role in profitability.

As I mentioned in the other thread, what does and does not survive and what does or does not change or how drastically it changes will be based on many factors, and this is one of them. It won't be purely on sales volume/popularity.

In other words, don't count on a blend staying or not changing much just because it's popular.

 

[woodsroad]

Under Dannes I forgot to mention STG,

Danes.
STG is now the ONLY pipe tobacco producer in DK.
The Danish brands you mentioned are all made by STG.

 

[Terry Lennox]

Don't forget Kopp and Dan Tabak in Germany still do a superb job with their blends.

I wonder if STG will move the blending tobaccos (for house blends) and the contract biz to the Dominican Republic factory.

 

[woodsroad]

No telling. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera.

Who knows, but the reason the industry is consolidating is that sales volume is dropping, so there is excess manufacturing capacity.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Don't forget Kopp and Dan Tabak in Germany still do a superb job with their blends.

The more the market collapses though, and the loss of that much of Sutliff and Mac Baren is pretty substantial, farming will be less profitable and there will be less raw product produced for blenders to acquire.

 

[elvishrunes]

Danes.
STG is now the ONLY pipe tobacco producer in DK.
The Danish brands you mentioned are all made by STG.

Are you slow or something? Or a troll? I just explained how I meant to say STG under Dannes, because they own all those brands I mentioned, I UNDERSTAND. I also get they purchased Mac B, and now own all that stuff too…. Thats what we’ve been talking about for a week…?

If you didn’t spend all your time trying to nit pick and auto-correct people’s posts you’d have more mental capacity to try and understand them…

 

[woodsroad]

Are you slow are something? Or a troll? I just explained how I meant to say STG under Dannes, because they own all those brands I mentioned, I UNDERSTAND. I also get they purchased Mac B, and now own all that stuff too…. Thats what we’ve been talking about for a week…?

If you didn’t spend all your time trying to not pick and auto-correct people’s posts you’d have more mental capacity to try and understand them…

Danes, not Dannes

 

[wyfbane]

Danes, not Dannes

I've missed you, man. lol

 

[Sobrbiker]

With the disappearance of the vast majority of BM’s, eliminating the myriad of aromatic bulks Sutliff picked up from Altadis would be a big percentage of catalog drop.
Here’s hoping that some of the good stuff is profitable enough to survive.

 

[Sobrbiker]

But I’d venture if all of Sutliff disappeared and all of MacBaren relocated, that may make a tidy 60/40 split

 

[damacene]

Has anyone reached out to the SPC to see if their blends will survive?

 

[Sobrbiker]

Are you slow are something? Or a troll?

That's some funny shit right there…

 

[elvishrunes]

That's some funny shit right there…

He certainly got me on the “Dannes” autocorrect. Touche

 

[georged]

I'm printing and framing this for my wall

 

[danimalia]

Well, hopefully the HH Line is safe. Those tend to be my favorite MacB blends, which is not to say they don't make some other bangers. It's a bit of a shame that the tobaccos used in pipe blends are so different than the black tobaccos used in cigar making, because STG Cigars just keeps expanding and expanding.I believe it was a GL Pease column I read where he mentioned that the availability of pipe tobacco components was largely sustained by the cigarette industry. With decreased demand for cigarettes, that's less demand for Virginia and Burley tobaccos, to say nothing of Perique, Turkish/Orientals, DFK (I suspect largely sustained by Dutch style rolling tobaccos) and Latakia.

 

[Pipke]

He certainly got me on the “Dannes” autocorrect. Touche

Burned you to the ground. Better do a better job of holding you shit together, or else...

 

[Pipke]

Has anyone reached out to the SPC to see if their blends will survive?

I have not reached out to them, but it seems to me that SPC and anyone else that uses Sutliff tobacco in their blends will have to adapt, or end.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Well, hopefully the HH Line is safe. Those tend to be my favorite MacB blends, which is not to say they don't make some other bangers. It's a bit of a shame that the tobaccos used in pipe blends are so different than the black tobaccos used in cigar making, because STG Cigars just keeps expanding and expanding.I believe it was a GL Pease column I read where he mentioned that the availability of pipe tobacco components was largely sustained by the cigarette industry. With decreased demand for cigarettes, that's less demand for Virginia and Burley tobaccos, to say nothing of Perique, Turkish/Orientals, DFK (I suspect largely sustained by Dutch style rolling tobaccos) and Latakia.

DFK is used in a lot of smokless products, but they too have been dropping quaility and leaving that out of some new versions of blends.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

to say nothing of Perique

I used to say this quite a bit, especially right after we toured LaPoche, but... if you saw how little the world's supply of perique is... I mean I could fit it all easily in my garage with enough room to park my car and store yard tools... you start to understand how small the pipe tobacco market is.

In another thread, people were talking about HU tobaccos being sent over in shipping containers, haha. Maybe, but It would merely be a few boxes in one of them, probably riding along side kegs of beer, cuckoo clocks, and teddy bears or whatever else the Germans export. But, it probably could be more easily mailed air freight.

 

[Peterson314]

I expect everything that I like to either be discontinued or changed. I've bought more than I can smoke.