Some of you may have heard by now of the 70 Million dollar sale of Sutliff and Mac Baren’s to the Scandinavian Tobacco Group that has operations all over the world. STG, headquartered in metropolitan Copenhagen, Denmark, has a total of around 10,000 employees worldwide and are represented in Europe, North America, Central America and Asia. On January 2, 2025, Sutliff, a Mac Baren’s owned company, sent out a letter to all pipe, cigar, cigarette & vape distributors around the USA (and beyond), that was not well received for many reasons. I have posted a copy of that letter in this blog that I’ll get to in a moment.
I recently received a phone call from a friend of mine, Tom Williams, who owns the outstanding Colony Tobacco Shop in Billings, Missouri. He also received the Sutliff letter, and he sold a lot of Sutliff and Mac Baren’s bulk and tinned blends that, according to the letter, are being discontinued. So, like a lot of other shop owners around the country that sell pipe tobacco, he’s going to try to work a deal with other tinned and bulk tobacco distributors to make up for upcoming lost inventory from Sutliff and Mac Baren’s. So, to my mind, it looks the recent monster sale of Sutliff and Mac Baren’s will be a big boost to distributors like Cornell & Diehl, and Hearth and Home in the USA, and Stokkebye in Denmark, who already feed a lot of pipe shops around the country with their bulk blends.
I personally don’t think that STG would have made the purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff for 70-Million if those two companies were not also large importers and distributors of many cigar brands (and vapes, too!). So, STG’s purchase tells me that they will pick up a lot of cigar business – which sure seems to be what they were after in the first place, and that pipe tobacco was a tailgater.
Years ago when I received my tobacco license, I was told by the Texas Comptroller’s Office that they make surprise visits to tobacco distributors around the state on a regular basis to ensure proper selling and record keeping practices by all licensees for their sales of all tobacco products. Not long ago, I called the TCO to renew my license. I was curious as to why, after all these years, I had never had one of those surprise visits. I’ve always used a professional CPA to oversight my records because I sure don’t want to make mistakes that could get me into trouble. Anyway, the employee told me that pipe tobacco was small potatoes, and that the big excise tax money for the state comes mainly from the sales of cigars and cigarettes, and those licensed sellers are the ones that they watch closely. Fine with me, but did get my feelings hurt a little when I found out that my business is small potatoes, ha!
Without further ado, here is a copy of that letter from Sutliff, that is of great import to many pipe tobacco lovers like you and I.
Enjoy,
Steve
