NEW YORK - Philip Morris and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. each will begin marketing spit-free tobacco-coated sticks in April at select retailers in Kansas, company spokesman Ken Garcia told the Wall Street Journal.
The 2.5-inch-long toothpick-like sticks are coated with finely milled tobacco and will be sold under the Marlboro and Skoal labels in different flavors such as "smooth mint."
In convenience stores, smokeless products made up the highest percentage of sales in the OTP subcategory in 2010. For more on tobacco trends, read "Category Close-Up" in the February issue of NACS Magazine.
The Journal writes that the effort to boost OTP shows how Altria "is trying to capitalize on opportunities for growth in the smokeless-tobacco category amid continuing declines in sales volumes in the much-larger cigarette category," adding that overall industry sales volumes for moist snuff and OTP "have been increasing at about 7% per year."