Boycott Champagne and don't go to France on holiday. That's the message from the Swedish Haypp Group, which runs Snusbolaget, Sweden's largest retailer of snus and nicotine pouches.
"Champagne contains an addictive substance, is carbonated to resemble soft drinks and flavoured to attract minors," Haypp wrote in a press release to its shareholders.
Swedish retailer Haypp group's operations will not be significantly affected by the upcoming ban on nicotine pouches in France. The company announced this in a statement to its shareholders. However, it is highly critical of the French government's decision.
"To put this in perspective. We now urge our customers to boycott champagne and to plan their holidays in any country other than France from next year onwards," Markus Lindblad, head of communications and legal affairs at Haypp, which runs several online shops for smokeless nicotine in Sweden and several other countries, told the magazine. AsianTrader.
Cigarettes dominate nicotine use
Markus Lindblad admits there is a touch of humour in the message, but stresses the seriousness of the situation. Nicotine pouches, along with disposable vapes, have become growing competitors in the nicotine market in France. The market is still dominated by cigarettes and almost 27% of the population smokes to get their nicotine. The government is now banning the two product categories that are challenging cigarette sales. The aim is to improve public health, as nicotine pouches and disposables are considered to attract minors to use nicotine. But this argument rings false to Mr Lindblad.
"If the French government's goal is really to improve public health, given the harm caused by alcohol, it would make much more sense for them to ban champagne rather than nicotine pouches. We want to see strong regulation of nicotine pouches, not a total ban."
Cancer and addiction
And according to the Haypp Group CEO Gavin O'Dowd the same arguments used to ban nicotine pouches altogether can be used against champagne and similar sparkling wines.
"The drink is reportedly both addictive, carcinogenic and targets minors by being carbonated to mimic soft drinks." says Gavin O'Dowd in a press release.
Focus on the US and the UK
According to Gavin O'Dowd, the company is now investing far more resources in establishing itself in the US and UK markets than in the shaky EU market.
"We see no risk of the UK following the French line. They have a science-based approach to nicotine products where less harmful products like nicotine pouches should be more attractive to use and less taxed than more harmful products like cigarettes," he says.
Positive for nicotine pouches in the States
In the United States, interest in nicotine pouches is growing at a rapid pace, while both authorities and high-ranking politicians are talking positively about the smoke-free nicotine product. Recently, the US FDA announced that it intends to "streamline" the process for approving more nicotine pouches on the US market. Currently, only the Zyn brand can be sold with FDA approval.
Smaller producers are disadvantaged
Meanwhile, the FDA has previously promised to streamline a similar process for e-liquid and e-cigarettes in the US. Despite millions of applications from thousands of small to medium-sized e-cigarette companies, only about 30 products have been approved for sale in the country. Of these, the majority are manufactured by large tobacco companies and are flavoured only with artificial tobacco and menthol.
Never go to France. The snuff is essential! (But... a spelling mistake in the title of this reply: according to Swedish language rules, it should instead read: "Your e-mail address will not be published (without capitals)". The important word "to" is unfortunately disappearing in the Swedish written language...