TAAT Now Selling in Tobacco Retailers Throughout Greater London
LAS VEGAS and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TAAT GLOBALALTERNATIVES INC. (CSE: TAAT) (OTCQX: TOBAF) (FRANKFURT: 2TP) is pleased to announce that TAAT™ is now selling in tobacco retailers across the Greater London area of the United Kingdom, primarily in the borough of Croydon. In a May 20, 2021 press release, the Company outlined the unique competitive advantages it stood to benefit from by selling TAAT in the United Kingdom to include a lower price point, as well as its exemption from federal U.K. laws that mandate “plain packaging” of tobacco products (i.e., TAAT can be sold in colourful branded packages). Moreover, TAAT could later capitalize on an impending market gap in the tobacco category in the United Kingdom after cigarette giant Philip Morris International announced in July 2021 that it was planning to discontinue sales of tobacco cigarettes in the country by the end of the decade1.
In October 2021, the first commercial shipment of TAAT arrived in the U.K., as partial fulfilment of more than CAD $1,200,000 worth of purchase orders from Green Global Earth, the Company’s exclusive distributor for TAAT in the United Kingdom. GGE has leveraged the unique value propositions of TAAT to place all three varieties in at least 17 confirmed points of sale across Greater London, pending reports of additional verified retail placements. GGE has also obtained a finalized Confirmation of Registration from the National Health Service for each specific variety of TAAT, further to the initial general Confirmation of Registration issued by Public Health England in August 2021.
London-area retailers currently carrying TAAT are afforded a far greater degree of flexibility with respect to how the product is positioned at the point of sale for the purpose of capturing the interest of smokers of legal age in-store, compared to products that contain tobacco. Additionally, as mentholated tobacco cigarettes were made illegal in the United Kingdom in May 2020, tobacco retailers carrying TAAT are now able to offer their customers who are smokers of legal age an option to enjoy a substantially similar smoking experience with a menthol taste.
TAAT Chief Executive Officer Setti Coscarella commented, “We have been launching TAAT all over the United States for the past year, and we are thrilled to be executing our first international launch in the Greater London area. Similar to what we did in Ohio last December, we are focusing on specific areas of Greater London such as Croydon where GGE believes there are strategic advantages to launching TAAT before expanding into other regions of the United Kingdom. Something you’ll notice in many U.K. convenience stores and other tobacco retailers is that it is very common for them to advertise various products that impart a menthol taste and scent into regular cigarettes since menthol tobacco cigarettes cannot be sold in the United Kingdom anymore. This is one aspect of the U.K. market that we are building our commercialization strategy around, as we continue executing our first launch of TAAT outside of the United States.”
Meet TAAT, a hemp-based cigarette look-alike. Made by a Canadian company, designed by Philip Morris International alumni, and now being test-marketed in the U.S.A., TAAT is nicotine-free ‘cigarettes’ that promise a realistic smoking experience. – TAAT