More on Camel Dip - a premium moist snuff..

July 30, 2009 - Back in April 2009 Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) announced it will launch Camel Dip (moist snuff), a premium moist smokeless product, in test markets in Colorado and Florida beginning in mid-June, 2009. Camel Dip will be distributed through Reynolds' Conwood Co. subsidiary, making it the first time that the manufacturer (produced and packaged at Conwood's plant in Memphis, Tenn., as well as distributed by the Memphis-based company) has marketed a Camel product outside R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.(RJR). (Camel SNUS is marketed by RJR.)

Camel Dip snuff is being offered to distributors for the same price its bigger competitor charges for Skoal and Copenhagen, said Bryan Stockdale, chief executive officer of Reynolds’ Conwood unit. A national expansion of Camel Dip may help the company reverse declining market share in higher-priced snuff, he said.

RAI CEO comments on the launch of Camel Dip and Camel SNUS market..

Reynolds and Altria, the country’s two largest tobacco companies, are going after the snuff market to counter shrinking cigarette demand. Altria’s UST division cut the price of Skoal and Copenhagen 62 cents per can on March 29, spurring Reynolds to lower prices (on April 1st 72 cents) of its more-expensive Kodiak brand in a move that hurt second- quarter profit. Camel’s share of U.S. smokers was unchanged at 7.5 percent in the period, the Winston-Salem, North Carolina- based company said July 23.
The price reductions on those two brands haven’t slowed Grizzly’s growth, Stockdale said. Reynolds has introduced four new varieties of Grizzly (Grizzly pouches (2-pouch styles, mint and straight, launched in the 1st quarter 2009 only accounted for 0.2 of a share point.)

“We’re stretching the brand to figure out whether or not you can take a well-known cigarette trademark and expand it into this category,” Stockdale, 51, said July 27 in his first interview since taking charge of Conwood in February. “There’s a whole lot of early-on feedback that says we may have something that’s got some legs to it.”

Will the Camel trademark succeed where the Marlboro trademark failed..

Altria won’t comment on Camel Dip, David Sylvia, a spokesman for the Richmond, Virginia-based company, said in an e-mail.

Grizzly and Kodiak are Reynolds’ top-selling smokeless tobacco brands. (Grizzly (value priced) is the nations number one moist snuff brand and has expanded its market share to 25.5 percent; Kodiak is a very slow moving product) It also makes tobacco twists, Levi Garrett chewing tobacco and Tube Rose snuff, according to Conwood’s Web site. Altria’s UST division sells Red Seal and Husky snuff in addition to Skoal and Copenhagen.

Reynolds is testing its Camel version of moist snuff as part of an effort to boost sales of higher-priced products. While the Kodiak brand generates lower sales than less-expensive Grizzly, it’s about twice as profitable, Stockdale said.

Reference: Reynolds May Introduce Camel Snuff to Go After Altria (Update1) by Chris Burritt, Bloomberg.com, 7/27/2009.

The Camel Circle of products diagram has to be updated with the dissolvables and now with Camel Dip.

Camel Dip - related news briefs: Reynolds American Inc. Q2 2009 Earnings..; RAI CEO comments on the launch of Camel Dip and Camel SNUS market..; Reynolds American to launch Camel Dip in June 2009...