The Changed Market for U.S. Cigar Leaf Tobacco

Excerpts from the report Summary: Two main advances in cigar manufacturing in the last decade have been the increased use of short filler in cigars and the development of reconstituted tobacco sheet. Both have substantially reduced labor costs in the production of cigars. They have also made the use of tobacco in cigars more efficient. When short filler and sheet are used instead of long filler and natural binder and wrapper, the manufacturer can blend to more exact specifications. Total tobacco consumption has grown with the population, but per capita consumption of tobacco in all forms has varied little since World War II. There have been significant shifts, however, in the forms in which tobacco is consumed. These shifts occurred during wars and with changes in the social attitude toward tobacco consumption; for example, toward women smoking cigarettes. Because each type of tobacco is used mainly for one or two consumer products, the shifts in the form of tobacco consumption have influenced the demand for individual types of tobacco. The percentage of total tobacco consumed in the form of cigars and scrap chewing tobacco has fallen off greatly in the past 40 years. The absolute quantity used in those forms in the past decade was less than half that of the decade after 1920. Since then, cigarettes have become the dominant form of tobacco consumption.