Plasencia organic cigars on the French market

With close to 30 million cigars a year, Plasencia, one of the largest tobacco producers in the world, is now offering aficionados an exclusive range of organic cigars. In France, cigars produced by Plasencia are distributed in particular by the Maya Selva brand. The producer hopes to ride the organic wave and strengthen its distribution in Europe.

Can we really speak of organic cigars?

The range described as organic, « Reserva Organica », does not carry the official organic label but states clearly that it comes 100% from organic farming. So how should this be read? A cigar described as organic is plainly no less dangerous to health than a conventional one, but the manufacturer Nestor Plasencia fully intends to establish himself in the increasingly popular organic farming sector. His regular presence in France to promote his cigars bears out that wish to continue a venture begun in 1998.

Organic tobacco is not entirely new in the world of smokers, but it remains recent in the cigar accessories sector. It should be noted that organic tobacco accounts for only 1% of the Plasencia group’s total output. The family concentrates its organic cigar production on a « small » area of 20 hectares, despite a cost twice that of conventional production. The venture has nonetheless met with real success, since the organic side of the business has allowed the Plasencia family to develop ways of fighting pest insects without insecticide, using garlic, certain fungi and a species of wasp.

Organic tobacco, an argument that is still disputed.

The « organic » argument continues to be disputed by many anti-smoking associations and public health monitoring bodies, but it has been used for years by cigarette manufacturers.

In the United States, for example, the American Spirit brand, launched in 1982 by one of the largest tobacco producers in the world, British American Tobacco (BAT), appears to have been the first to use an organic cigarette argument. In France, the Altadis Distribution France group has clearly moved towards the organic cigarette, offering no fewer than six cigarette brands whose packs state « no additives » or « no pesticides ». Marketing practices of this kind regularly bring cigarette manufacturers into court against anti-smoking associations.

It should therefore be borne in mind that the « organic » label covers only the growing of the tobacco without insecticide or other chemicals, and offers no guarantee about the later stages of manufacture such as drying or fermentation.