One of the world’s biggest tobacco manufacturers will build a $US600 million ($AU895m) nicotine pouch factory.
(PMI), which owns the nicotine pouch brand Zyn, said its planned facility will “help meet the growing global demand for smoke-free [nicotine] products”.
Nicotine pouches are placed between a user’s upper lip and gum, allowing the drug to be absorbed through the mouth and into the bloodstream.
There is limited data on the health impacts of nicotine pouches.
Nicotine pouches
‘Snus’, nicotine pouches that contain tobacco, have been used as a traditional alternative to cigarettes in Scandinavian countries for hundreds of years.
Snus is illegal in Australia because it contains tobacco. The EU also banned the sale of snus in the 1990s, with an exemption for Sweden.
Smoking rates in Sweden dropped by 60% between 2006 and 2020. It’s widely believed the popularity of snus contributed to this figure.
Nicotine pouches have surged in global popularity in more recent years, particularly among young people.
This is related to the development of tobacco-free pouches like ZYN. No brand of tobacco-free nicotine pouches has been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia.
ZYN is a nicotine pouch brand from manufacturer Swedish Match, which PMI bought for $US16 billion in 2022. Since then, ZYN sales have increased by 80%.
According to the Cancer Council, 27.4% of cigarettes consumed around the world in 2018 were PMI-owned brands, including Marlboro and L&M.
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Philip Morris’ nicotine pouch factory
PMI’s new nicotine-pouch facility will be built in the U.S. state of Colorado. It’s scheduled to begin manufacturing ZYN in 2026.
PMI U.S. CEO Stacey Kennedy said the factory will speed up PMI’s goal to move smokers “away from cigarettes” and meet “the increasing demand” for alternative nicotine options.
In 2023, PMI reported a net revenue of around $US35 billion. Its smoke-free business (which includes ZYN) accounted for 39% of this figure.
Health risk
Nicotine pouches are marketed as a safer alternative to traditional smoking.
In 2020, Swiss Parliamentary officials reported that snus, which contains tobacco, “poses a health risk at least 90 percent lower” than cigarettes.
However, experts are concerned that the full health impacts of nicotine pouches remain relatively unknown.
As well as being an addictive substance, nicotine has been known to deteriorate gum tissue and cause mouth and gum disease and tooth decay.
Dr. Becky Freeman from the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health told TDA there are several concerns around nicotine pouches.
She said young people with nicotine dependency face social, academic, and cognitive disadvantages, and an elevated risk of mental-ill health. “Young people are being targeted by the tobacco industry yet again,” Freeman told TDA.
She also warned that despite marketing claims from corporations like PMI, nicotine pouches are often used in addition to smoking, rather than as an alternative to cigarettes.
