Vape Company Questions Altria's Motive Behind Recent Investments In Smoke-Free Alternatives

Altria Group, a US-based tobacco company and one of the biggest in the world, has acquired a majority stake in Burger Sohne, a Switzerland-based company that makes a tobacco-free product similar to snus.

The acquisition comes at a time when Altria is rapidly branching out from what has historically been its bread and butter: cigarettes. With this latest acquisition, the company has acquired an 80% stake in Burger Sohne for a reported $372 million. As a result, Altria now has yet another nicotine product under its belt that’s free of the tobacco that it has capitalized on for some time now.

Burger Sohne’s on! brand pouches, while similar to snus, contain no tobacco. Instead, they’re infused with nicotine salts, much like many modern e-liquids, including Juul’s. Snus, which is defined as powdered tobacco, is intended to be placed in the mouth, between the lips and gums, allowing for the absorption of nicotine into the bloodstream by way of the mouth. To be clear, it’s not intended to be ingested, instead, it simply rests in the mouth.

Altria now has investments that include stakes in legal cannabis companies, e-cigarette companies, and manufacturers of heat-not-burn devices like Philip Morris International, which manufactures the IQOS device.

As for the reasoning behind Altria’s decision to invest outside of the tobacco industry, one vape company, Northland Vapor, wondered aloud in a blog post whether the company’s goal might be something “more sinister” than simply “pivoting to similar products” in light of cigarettes’ dwindling popularity. In their blog post, Northland, which sells vaping products like e-liquids and vape kits, wondered if Altria’s goal might be to acquire cigarette alternatives in order to “price gouge them” out of the reach of consumers, leaving only cigarettes within financial reach of consumers. Then again, their reasoning may simply be an attempt to hedge their bets.

Regardless of their reasoning, one thing is clear: Altria has been investing a considerable amount of capital in companies and products that exist outside of the tobacco industry and in some cases, are in competition with the tobacco products that have been the cornerstone of their business model for many years.