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Cerulean, market-leading supplier of quality assurance equipment for the tobacco industry, has added a new product to its paper testing range that assists paper and cigarette manufacturers in meeting the requirements for Fire Standard Compliant cigarettes. The new CDX101 Diffusivity Tester provides a robust tool for determining the properties of the bands and base paper of Low Ignition Propensity (LIP) paper by measuring CO2 diffusivity. 

Situated in East Java province in Indonesia covering an area of 3,293.34 square km is a small town called Jember. For more than 50 years now, Jember has been home to PT Mangli Djaya Raya (MDR), a tobacco manufacturing and exporting company. The company was founded on April 11, 1960 by Budi Laksmono, Indra Santoso, Effendy Santoso and Hasantono Santoso. 

Kretek clove cigarettes are preferred by over 93% of smokers in Indonesia. But outside the country, kretek remains largely unknown to many consumers. Tobacco Asia asked one of Indonesia’s most successful kretek manufacturers, Djarum, for some insights into the pitfalls and challenges facing kretek as it struggles to conquer overseas markets.

The US had been a principal target for Djarum’s export drive for some time.

The tobacco industry of China, with production hampered by lingering adverse weather, is striving to fight off natural disasters and guarantee sufficient tobacco crops for cigarette production in the current year.

From the autumn of 2009 to early 2010, southwest China – the largest tobacco-growing zone in the country – was visited by a protracted drought, the most severe recorded for 100 years since the start of meteorological records in the region, together with high temperatures.

The technological leadership status of the Great Wall cigar brand of China Tobacco Chuanyu Industrial Corporation (CTCIC) in southwest China – renowned as China’s leading cigar brand – has proven to be the mainstay supporting the subsistence and business development of this regional tobacco manufacturer.

Over recent years, China’s cigar industry has made great progress in business development, and has become a major new force in domestic tobacco markets.

Filtrona Filter Products has opened a new regional development center in Indonesia to provide customers in Asia with a dedicated resource for developing innovative new filter solutions with a local ‘flavor’. The new development center opened in January, 2010 and customers will be invited to visit to discuss filter design, see their samples being produced and offer instant feedback.

As the tobacco market is increasingly under pressure, facing rigorous regulations worldwide, leading manufacturers are searching for the most efficient, premium quality control equipment. While the removal of foreign matter (FM) or non-tobacco related materials (NTRM) is a specific field of expertise, many techniques and technologies apply. One of them is the ‘optical’ technology. 

In 2008, the JT Group decided to execute a detailed market analysis on the latest technologies used in optical FMD-systems. During this process, the JT Group learned that the technology had greatly evolved since their existing laser-based FMD equipments were implemented, making it impossible to further upgrade them with the latest technologies available. 

Urschel, a leading name in size reduction technology, celebrates its first 100 years as a family-run company this year.

Founded in 1910, Urschel Laboratories, Inc. is the world leader in food cutting equipment manufacturing. Urschel is not just a builder of machines. The company works with customers to develop solutions to processing problems, finding – or creating – the best Urschel machine to fit any production situation. 

As the counterfeiting of tobacco products continues to pose a serious problem plaguing the tobacco industry, Chinese tobacco manufacturers, particularly high-grade cigarette producers, are adopting multiple approaches and technologies to fight rampant counterfeiting in the country.

Cigarette counterfeiting in China is so serious that in 2009 alone Chinese tobacco monopoly administrative authorities seized 6.14 billion cigarettes in anti-counterfeiting operations nationwide.

ITM Poland, part of the ITM Group, is located in Radom, an industrial town one hour South of Warsaw. The company was established in 1991 and has grown to 450 employees today, all devoted to creating new equipment for primary and secondary machinery. 

At Radom, the main goal is developing and producing machines that meet the requirements of the industry in the future. Commitment to this goal has brought ITM to where it is today: a leading innovator for the tobacco industry.