AG Snus - the "kinda" new kid on the block. 5 January 2011.

I recently got word of a new snus company and was pretty surprised to see that in fact this "new" company wasn't actually new at all, but a company that has been involved in snus for 146 years! AG Snus is preparing to launch two new products, Blue Ocean (White Portion) and Jägarpris (Original Portion) into the Swedish Snus market soon. A little background on AG Snus.

In 1864, Assens Tobaksfabrik was making and selling snus. In 1990, Assens Tobaksfabrik merged with Scandinavian Tobaco Company's smoking tobacco division and formed Orlik Tobacco Company. In 2004, Orlik and Scandinavian entered the Swedish snus market and formed Fiedler & Lundgren. F&L is currently the second largest snus producer in Sweden with such brands as Granit, Mocca, and Lucky Strike. Back on topic, in 2008 Scandinavian Tobacco sold F&L to British American Tobacco which of course meant the shares Assens Tobaksfabrik had in Orlik Tobacco to Scandinavian Tobacco Company.

Alright, moving forward. In 2008 Assens Tobaksfabrik goes back into snus. A new factory was built in 2009, "state of the art machinery" was installed, and production was kicked off in Summer 2010. They plan on having snus produced under the AG Snus label on the Swedish Market in Winter of 2011. Currently, they use tobacco from the US, Brazil, Guatemala, India, and the Philippines. The tobacco is dark air cured or sun cured, they use open barns as well for their curing. With their 146 year history of making snus and 5 generations of a family-ran business, they should make a hell of a product once it's hits the market.

EDIT: Not sure about this, but their website says "Winter 2011", however Northerner has it listed as a new product here. It's only for Swedish consumers however. I'm waiting to find out more info about this though.

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