India is the number uno in snuff taking without doubt .Snuff is insufflated as well as used as a dentifrice widely.Which other countries have a big snuff taking culture?
Not the US yet.
For Europe it would be Poland, Germany, Switzerland and Scotland which have different kinds of snuff festivals. I would also add England into that, since that’s the country with the most snuff producers on that continent. For Asia: Mongolia For Africa: depends on the tribe. There are/were a lot of them that really enjoy/ed snuff like Kikuyu and Elgeyo in Kenia or Ovimbundu in Angola. Off course the most popular snufftaking tribe are the Zulu in RPA.
Thanks for the information. In Asia you can also include the Tibetian people,they use snuff big time. In Africa,Is it still used in Angola? There used to be snuff culture in Kenya too. What does RPA stand for?
My mistake… RPA is a Polish abbreviation for Republika Południowej Afryki - Republic of South Africa.
We are trying to enter new markets.Already have distributors in 7 countries. We are open to alliances in newer territories.
Japan has a strong smoking culture as well as other countries such as the US that could use the aid of snuff. Creating a market however will be much work that may be better left to organizations like the ISTA.
All kind of help for promotion of snuff is welcome.
What about Brazil?
Well, here in Russia there is no snuff culture. Just ocasional poshl snuffs ar in trade and just a few McCrystals and SG blends I have been saw in a big tobacconists in a central town of St.Petersburg and Moscow. But, we have almost a half of all people smoking cigaretts, especially out of big cities. Almost everyone tells “I’d like to quit cigs”. If the snuff was chipier, may be it could be popular. Now, Gawith Apricot(10g) and President(7g) is about $5, McCrystals costs more. I understand, that transportation costs some cash, but the price is so big for most of customers. So snus, snuff and pipe tobacco is for snobbish types. Some tobacconists have a few pipes in stock, Peterson tobacco with price of $24,5 for a tin I laugh to myself: do they expect for someone to buy that stuff for regular?! That tin standing on its counter for half a year. And, yes, schoolkids indulge snuffing as I mentioned due to its stealthiness not only for eyes and also not knowing what it is for parents and teachers. But thay are also occasional users.
@Geok I’m guessing Russia has a protectionist tariff policy which probably makes domestic cigarettes cheaper than imported snuff. Time to start up some Russian snuffmaking again! There is a need to fill all those gorgeous snuff boxes from the Czarist days! As to the above, I think all the significant countries have been named. Austria, you can probably add to the European list, also Wales if you want to count it separatly. In Africa I think its largley a cottage industry outside of South Africa but from what I understand very popular. Yes, I have heard Angola mentioned, also Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and some others I can’t remember. Not heard any thing from west Africa that I can remember. In North Africa, there seems to be some degree of snuff culture in Morocco and Algeria, again mostly a cottage industry and/or state monopoly. Brazil, yes they even produce some snuff but I think its very small companies doing so, and not as well know among the general public. However, in the Amazon basin region there are hundreds of indigenous tribes still producing their own variations. Vikas, in your part of the world is there anything in the neighboring countries? Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal? I know Bhutan is a mess these days, so I would guess none there. How about Sikkim state? I’m thinking Himalaya region in general. Snuff seems to be more popular in mountainous/hilly regions in Europe, so I wonder if the trend is universal.
I’m guessing Russia has a protectionist tariff policy which probably makes domestic cigarettes cheaper than imported snuff. Time to start up some Russian snuffmaking again! There is a need to fill all those gorgeous snuff boxes from the Czarist days!
Don’t think so, really. Online traders sell Ozona’s snuff even cheaper than mrsnuff do. $1.8 vs $2.52 for example. It’s just offline trader’s pricing boost. A very important factor in Russia that people do not use internet for trade as common in Europe and US, so they are have no clue that same batch has the triple lower price online.
@ Xander : a lot of good information there. In Africa there is certainly a lot of potential,we have sent a few trial consignments already.Snuff is said to be in fashion there. India is such a huge market for all types of tobacco products,and there are plenty of items and plethora of brands in each category.In Sikkim and the entire north eastern states chewing tobacco and snus are a rage.We sell some snuff,nothing very big by Indian standards. Tibet is huge snuff market,Nepal and Pakistan are more snus oriented.
Hope about the percent of usage of naswar in India. How many people actually use your products nasally there?
Cant really give you a figure.naswar as snuff is known here is used as a dentifrice much more these days
However, in the Amazon basin region there are hundreds of indigenous tribes still producing their own variations.
But it’s rather hard to tell which ones are actually into snuff made from tobacco. Most of them make hallucinogenic snuffs that doesn’t have to much in common with tobacco or make a mixture of tobacco and hallucinogenic stuff. Besides to North America, I would add Grenland. The Eskimo do have some snuff customs.
from what I understand in argentina and brazil snuff while not quite common it is known by most people. Or at least that is what my south american friends tell me.
I think that the people form countries that had or still have some sort of snuff taking culture are familiar in what is snuff. I would guess that for Poland the percent of snuff users would be from 3-5%. It’s only a guess based on the statistics from the '20s, where snuff and pipe tobacco users together had 7%. I do remember that nowadays Bulgaria has 1% of snuff users from some sort of statistic from the begining of the XXI century. But like Poland and other countries from that part of the world the consumption of ciggarrets are one of the highest in the world.
i certainly hope so !
It would be hard for a country that had nothing in common with snuff, so finding such an alternative for cigarrettes would be quite strange. From my research (when I was making the great list of snuffs) I did learn only about one snuff factory in Bulgaria in history. I think I still have an image of the tin of the snuff from it on my laptop. that’s the curse of the the Ottoman Empire…
Snuff is virtually unknown in Central America except in some urban areas, and as mentioned above, some indigenous peoples make a sort of snuff, although not from tobacco. Many are surprised to learn that, aside from urban areas, an infamous white substance is not used except as tea and chewed leaves, which are not insuflated like the white crystaline powder made from them. There is a Spanish word for snuff, “rape” (pronounced RAH-pay in Spanish), but when I told a friend from Spain that I was getting into snuff, he laughed at me and asked if I was over 80 years old. LOL Most young smokers I know who try snuff like it, but they may not like it enough to give up the death sticks. Sigh.
Pakistan i guess, but the snuff here is of different kind.
When I was asking about nasal snuff in Tabacs in Spain (Tabacs is a tobacco-shop-network) no one even knew what am I talking about. I was able to buy Lowen and Red Bull in maybe two visited shops. About Bulgaria - I was in Sunny Beach and Nessebar once. I’ve found only one shop selling nasal snuff, only from Poschl (Gawith Apricot, Gletscherprise, Ozona Cherry). What is interesting - under bulgarian label was another one… Polish one.
I would like to open a store for snuff here in Norway, but I have some researching to do (and probably some licenses I need to get) before I can begin with that… On topic; we have virtually no snuff culture here (that I’m aware of at least), we have less than 1% snuff users for sure, much less…
I know of three of us for sure in Louisiana.
Big in Tibet. In Indonesia, I have reliable reports that there are at least two other snuff users – including Graeme Steele, who established the yahoo snuff forum, one of the oldest internet snuff forums, but not very active these days. There’s a member of snuffhouse who lives in Bali,and a well known online retailer who lived here for a while.
People have mentioned southern Africa I think women in Lesotho are particularly big users, from what I remember reading.