Update on the STG Closure Of Sutliff and Mac Baren

[Chasing Embers]

No cigarettes = none of that lovely Virginia tobacco we all love.

Or burley, Perique and Orientals. Dark Fired will no longer be made for chewing tobacco as well.

 

[Chasing Embers]

East Asia to keep the tobacco industry going.

As well as India being the second largest consumer.

 

[sablebrush52]

Greed: Intense and selfish desire of something, especially wealth, power, or food.

I suspect it was not greed that killed McClelland or D&R but those were much smaller businesses than STG is running. Also, no one bought McClelland. I’m not sure what happened with D&R.

I totally agree with you on the scale you’re talking about here but I don’t think that’s the same scale as this STG situation. I think it’s a monopoly play by a giant international tobacco conglomerate but I could be wrong.

Mark decided to sell D&R, while keeping La Poche. The new owner cut down the line quite a bit. You can see what's left at Smoking Pipes. Looks like it's mostly the RYO stuff.

 

[sablebrush52]

Greed: Intense and selfish desire of something, especially wealth, power, or food.

I suspect it was not greed that killed McClelland or D&R but those were much smaller businesses than STG is running. Also, no one bought McClelland. I’m not sure what happened with D&R.

I totally agree with you on the scale you’re talking about here but I don’t think that’s the same scale as this STG situation. I think it’s a monopoly play by a giant international tobacco conglomerate but I could be wrong.

Mark decided to sell D&R, while keeping La Poche. The new owner cut down the line quite a bit. You can see what's left at Smoking Pipes. Looks like it's mostly the RYO stuff.

I stocked quite a few things. My old oriental blends with Yenidje and some others were accidentally fortuitous hoarding decisions. I did not see the death of Sutliff coming, though. We will probably see an event nobody would have bet on: a scramble for Mixture 79. Unfortunately blends with prominent toppings, like Mixture 79, Mac Baren Scottish Mixture, and even St. Bruno are unlikely to fare well in long storage.

St Bruno definitely doesn't do well with long term storage, at least the Mac Baren version doesn't.

 

[Val]

I would guess one of the most valuable brands in the Mac Baren portfolio is Capstan. It is consistently on the SP best seller list. The association with Tolkein is gold from a marketing point of view. You see many new to the hobby eager to try Capstan because of that.

Capstan was originally an Imperial (UK) brand (from WD and HO Wills) that later became owned by BAT in a merger. STG's Orlik factory licensed it from BAT and made it for years at the Assens factory. Then Mac Baren bought the rights from BAT and moved production to their factory. Now, under STG, it is headed back to Assens!

You think the capstan as we know it will survive this?

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

One thing has been gradually working its way into my thoughts on STG and our concerns about what it might do to blends we love: STG-made Warrior Plug, Mick McQuaid Plug, and Velvan Plug were highly sought after for good reason. STG don’t ruin everything. I hope they will be good to their new product lines. I may be grasping at straws again.

I wouldn't mind if STG got rid of the whole Mac Baren line as long as they brought back Warrior & Mick McQuaide to replace them. I've got a fair bit of Warrior in the cellar and a couple of pouches of McQuaide. Amazing tobacco.

Never did get to try Velvan, though

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

Realistically we need more cigarette smokers for it otherwise the market isn't financially stable enough for farmers to grow it.

I still smoke cigarettes and when I buy them at the supermarket about a third of the display is vapes. All the kids I see are vaping not smoking. Not just kids, either. Walking about I see plenty of adults vaping but I rarely see another cigarette smoker. I think it's a combination of people being more aware of their health and the insane prices for a carton. I smoke Embassy Filter and they've just whacked some more taxes on which has pushed the price up to an eye watering £17 for a pack of 20.

 

[karam]

I still smoke cigarettes and when I buy them at the supermarket about a third of the display is vapes. All the kids I see are vaping not smoking. Not just kids, either. Walking about I see plenty of adults vaping but I rarely see another cigarette smoker. I think it's a combination of people being more aware of their health and the insane prices for a carton. I smoke Embassy Filter and they've just whacked some more taxes on which has pushed the price up to an eye watering £17 for a pack of 20.

Mate, I bought 2 packs of Marlboro Red in Barcelona just last week and paid 11 euros, I thought it was a mistake, but it wasn't.

The flipsides were:

• a pouch of Golden Virginia RYO and a pack of menthol cigarettes for my wife (she's quit since) in Paris last Christmas was 35 euros FFS!!!
• Two pouches of St Bruno in the UK on a trip last year and it was 50 quid, again I was shocked.

When I started smoking in Greece ca 25 years ago a pack of cigs cost 1.5 euro? It's at 4.5-5 euros now, so still pretty cheap. It's at 8 euros/CHF in Switzerland.

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

Mate, I bought 2 packs of Marlboro Red in Barcelona just last week and paid 11 euros, I thought it was a mistake, but it wasn't.

The flipsides were:

• a pouch of Golden Virginia RYO and a pack of menthol cigarettes for my wife (she's quit since) in Paris last Christmas was 35 euros FFS!!!
• Two pouches of St Bruno in the UK on a trip last year and it was 50 quid, again I was shocked.

Yeah, the prices for tobacco in the UK are shocking if you're not used to it. Every year they add on extra taxes. I think we'll see a £20 carton of 20 cigarettes within the next 4 years, which is mental. They love shit like that over here in nanny state central. They've already brought in a sugar tax which is added to any food/drink that goes over a certain level. They keep talking about bringing in unit pricing for alcohol which will put up the cost even more. It's all in the name of public health, of course. Nothing to do with raising more in tax. Definitely not.

 

[BingBong]

Yeah, the prices for tobacco in the UK are shocking if you're not used to it. Every year they add on extra taxes. I think we'll see a £20 carton of 20 cigarettes within the next 4 years, which is mental. They love shit like that over here in nanny state central. They've already brought in a sugar tax which is added to any food/drink that goes over a certain level. They keep talking about bringing in unit pricing for alcohol which will put up the cost even more. It's all in the name of public health, of course. Nothing to do with raising more in tax. Definitely not.

21p for 20 No.6, I remember the days..

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

21p for 20 No.6, I remember the days..

I don't remember 21p for 20 but I do remember No.6.
They were my favourite smoke but they discontinued them sometime in the mid 1990's.

 

[MisterBadger]

21p for 20 No.6, I remember the days..

I remember the TV ad jingles that launched No. 6...

"Big, Gold Six - Player's Number Six! Quality cigarettes - just three and six."

That's 18p. In 1966, if memory serves. I was a kid at the time and didn't smoke, but did later in the 70s. They were cheap, but they were shite. Factory floor sweepings, held together with glue. Their vileness and cheapness was excelled only by No. 10 and Sovereign, small truncated gaspers that made Woodbines seem like Pall Mall or Dunhill by comparison.

 

[blackpowderpiper]

Pipe smoking is about as rare and bizzare as any activity you can think of.

Smoking cigarettes is rapidly going away, and that's a normal and semi popular thing to do.

Pipe smoking is going to die, this is a symptom of that... We all know it's coming. Will we act suprised when there's no pipe tobacco to buy?

RED ALERT!!!!: Buy tobacco now, or prepare to be without it.

Greed doesn't have anything to do with this... People weren't selling pipe tobacco in the past because they are friendly, they were selling it because there was a market.

As the market dies, so does the pipe tobacco business.

A very sound and reasoned post. Over the last decade or so, I've built a cellar that I believe will last me the rest of my life. I realized that on any given day, tobacco was never going to be cheaper or more available than it was at that moment. Some people went so far as to call me paranoid and implied that I was crazy for doing this.

I think any rational person can look around and see that the pipe tobacco (tobacco in general) market is dying. Just in my small part of the world, where once there were many tobacco farms, now there are virtually none. If you enjoy pipe smoking and want to continue doing it, buy now.

 

[BingBong]

I remember the TV ad jingles that launched No. 6...

"Big, Gold Six - Player's Number Six! Quality cigarettes - just three and six."

That's 18p. In 1966, if memory serves. I was a kid at the time and didn't smoke, but did later in the 70s. They were cheap, but they were shite. Factory floor sweepings, held together with glue. Their vileness and cheapness was excelled only by No. 10 and Sovereign, small truncated gaspers that made Woodbines seem like Pall Mall or Dunhill by comparison.

Haha! Yeah, never a big fan of "numblies", smoked Embassy and the like. No. 10 and Sovereign were for when you were really broke, 10 packs lol.

Oh if only I'd had proper direction with a pipe, would have had better smokes for less money.

 

[Briarcutter]

Mark decided to sell D&R,

Who owns D&R now?

 

[karam]

Nothing to do with raising more in tax. Definitely not.

I'm personally not convinced it's about raising more in tax in this case because any such initiative is self-defeating, so the tax revenue will go down eventually.

 

[Sigmund]

Sadly, the truth is that the MacBarren family was smart. Take a big ole pile of money and run from a doomed business.

 

[Hutch Piper]

I heard that the Sutliff factory will be closed in March 2025.

 

[Pipke]

Who owns D&R now?

Intercontinental Trading Company USA. I don't know if they are sole owners.

One of my favorite bulk pipe tobaccos is Arango Balkan Supreme, which is ultimately an STG product via the Arango Cigar Company. Arango looks like a distributor for STG. They only distribute STG pipe tobaccos, and both Mac Baren and Sutliff are in their catalog. Their catalog might be a good place to monitor for changes.

 

[cshubhra]

STG is getting quite the hate there for ruining blends. Those who have not made up their minds yet, it is just an opinion

1. STG makes fine blends and a lot of people all over the world enjoy it. Just because some members here are very vocal does not mean that’s the general consensus
2. Everything evolves. Taking a car analogy there is not much similarity between the first generation Corvette (C1) and modern day (C8) but they are both called Corvette
3. People may restore and love the C1 Corvette due to nostalgia but objectively C8 is a much better car. Similarly if most people like STG made blends, that’s what matters.
4. General Motor kept building the Corvette and killed the Pontiac Aztec. Most people think it is a good thing. Similarly, STG will consolidate the portfolios and stop making blends which hardly anyone buys

I will get off from my soapbox now, but I felt sad seeing STG getting badmouthed so much