Tobacco Asia

Tobacco Asia 61 • Double your resource value • Use 100% expanded fine- cut for MYO and RYO • Untouchable product quality • Impex – pressure/vacuum technology • DIET - Dry Ice Expansion Technology AircoDIET has supplied more than 55 DIET plants worldwide, many of which have been turn-key. We continuously develop and refine the DIET process and our DIET plants have above 95% uptime with a dry yield better than 98.5% through the plant. www.aircodiet.com Over 100% tobacco expansion should be mostly balanced," Socotab c.e.o. Jonathan Wertheimer told Tobacco Asia. "Indeed, the 2023 crop combined with the small amount of inventory that remains should be able to satisfy most of the demand, apart from the value grades, where supply remains constricted." But Wertheimer also added that there was an informal market operating in certain semi-oriental and big leaf varieties, which could have an impact on the more classical varieties if volumes are restricted due to bad weather or diminishing grower interest. Wertheimer's colleague, Yigit Tunçel, general manager of Socotab Yaprak Tütün, Socotab's local subsidiary, confirmed that although Turkey currently was "in a tight supply and demand situation," this really only applied to the value grades, specifically those of the Izmir variety. Izmir crops had yielded lower-than-planned volumes in the past two seasons due to drought. However, remaining inventory had allowed for the situation to remain generally balanced. Like Wertheimer, Tunçel expects to see a volume increase as of the 2023 Izmir crop that should greatly help alleviate the existing supply bottleneck. Data shared with Tobacco Asia by AOTT and the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture pretty much corroborate the hopes of Jonathan Wertheimer that the 2023 Izmir crop will reach 42,000 tons. The Agriculture Ministry's Alcohol and Tobacco Department reported that 37,400 tons of green Izmir oriental was produced during the 2022 season. And AOTT's Selim Jimi anticipates a year-on-year output increase for Izmir oriental of 10% in the current 2023 crop season. If that increase pans out, it would indeed bring the Izmir oriental crop this year to around 41,150 tons, just falling a little short of Wertheimer's projection. The eternal tightrope walk that is supply and demand One main reason why Turkey's tobacco growing sector temporarily found itself in a tight spot was local farmers reacting to fluctuating demand. As they should, we might add. When volumes vary, tobacco farmers usually pick up the mood of the market rather quickly. For some years leading up to the pandemic, a combination of existing uncommitted dealer inventories and weakening demand prompted Turkish farmers to downward adjust their new crop volumes, according to Jonathan Wertheimer. All good and well under normal circumstances…but pretty much unforeseen by anybody, cigarette markets worldwide actually experienced a surprise strengthening during the pandemic. "Unfortunately, this positive event took place at the same time as the world entered an inflationary cycle, thus making the situation somewhat more complicated for both the local farmers and dealers to plan the crops," Wertheimer explained. His colleague Yiğit Tüncel added that, thankfully, Turkish tobacco farmers proved them- selves flexible and reactive enough in terms of back-adjusting their upcoming volumes upwards again. Jonathan Wertheimer, c.e.o. of Socotab Yigit Tunçel, general manager of Socotab's local subsidiary, Socotab Yaprak Tütün Credit: Socotab Credit: Socotab

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