The blazing success of Swiss cigarettes in Africa

Destination: Casablanca

The sun rises over Casablanca’s old Medina neighbourhood. In the narrow alleyways of Morocco’s business capital, residents chatter quietly, women buy washing detergent and children play hide-and-seek behind the ornate wooden doors that decorate house-fronts. In front of his dress and djellaba [a long, loose fitting robe] shop, Marwane takes a puff of his cigarette. It is neither the first, nor will it be the last, cigarette of what will be a long day – he must wait for evening to arrive before closing his shop. What is he smoking? Winstons, he tells us, holding out the packet. A closer look reveals a familiar sight printed on the packet:

We see the same phrase everywhere during out stay in Morocco in mid-October 2018. From the former Medina to the city’s schools, as well as in cafes and restaurants. Everywhere, we see men, women and teenagers smoking cigarettes that have been made in Switzerland. They are always the same – Winston, Camel and Marlboro.

Ibtissam, a young woman sitting on the terrace in front of the Le Noble café in Maarif, a shopping district, puts out her cigarette stub in the ashtray before returning to work. “I started when I was 12 and I don’t want to stop” she explains. “For me, it’s a form of freedom”. Does she know that she’s smoking Swiss cigarettes? “Of course. For me that’s a sign of quality – they’re better than the Moroccan ones.” she responds.

Cheese, chocolate and tobacco

Switzerland often promotes the fact that it exports its delicious chocolate, or prestigious watches, to the world. Yet there is another Swiss product that is just as successful, but far less vaunted: cigarettes. In 2016, Switzerland produced 34.6 billion cigarettes – nearly two billion packets. Some 25% were sold on the domestic market. Nearly 75% were exported, providing enough cigarettes for over four million people to smoke a packet a day over the year.

The proportion of exports has been dropping, falling by nearly half since 2011. In terms of revenue, the country is only the world’s fifteenth largest exporter of cigarettes, coming in far behind the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Poland. Yet it has been a steady business for the Swiss economy:

Where are these cigarettes sold? Japan is destination number one. Could this take the form of Japan Tobacco International’s production, which is sent to the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’? When contacted, the firm did not give a specific answer to this question. Morocco and South Africa occupy second and third place on the podium.

In 2017, 2,900 tonnes of Swiss cigarettes were exported to Morocco, the equivalent of some 3.625 billion ‘ciggies’. In corner shops, packets are sold for 33 dirhams (CHF 3.50). The most frugal consumers buy individual cigarettes for 2 dirhams each. Packets are certified: they carry a SICPA stamp, the Swiss certification and authentication body.

Until 2003, packets were produced on-site, at the Société Marocaine des Tabacs. Following the death of Hassan II, the Law 46.02 on the manufacture of tobacco was promulgated, liberalising the sector. International companies wasted little time in swooping into the market. Nowadays, 55% of the cigarettes smoked in Morocco are imported, most from Switzerland and then Turkey. The cigarettes arrive by boat at the port of Tanger Med, or even through ‘Casa’ (Casablanca).

On-site, the people we spoke to assured us that customs officers inspect the goods – they open containers, choose a random carton and then check that the cargo complies with the submitted declaration. Nevertheless, one of our investigation’s overall observations was that only details related to the payment of taxes are checked – there are no measures to monitor the ingredients of cigarettes or their level of toxicity.

Globally, 80% of smokers live in low- or middle-income countries. The WHO estimates that there are 77 million smokers in Africa, namely 6.5% of the continent’s population. The institution predicts that by 2025, the figure will rise by nearly 40% compared to 2010 – the steepest increase globally. The number of deaths on the continent will double by 2030 in what the WHO describes as an ‘epidemic’. For the companies, Morocco appears to be an excellent gateway into these markets: according to a study carried out by the Moroccan Ministry of Health, 13% of smokers in the country are aged 15 and under. And the proportion of girls who smoke is starting to rival that of boys.

In Europe we see an inverse trend. Over the past 20 years, tobacco sales have fallen by 38% thanks to preventative campaigns and price increases. That is why producers are increasingly pushing their new “reduced-risk products”, which supposedly provide consumers with nicotine without the harmful effects of tobacco. Nevertheless, the newspaper Le Temps recently noted for Philip Morris that “despite the significant resources mobilised, Iqos still only represents 6% of the group’s production volume and 12% of its revenue”.

By waiting for Iqos and other gadgets that enable you to ‘smoke without smoking’ to bring in real revenue – a situation that may never materialise – Philip Morris International and its competitors have to continue to sell cigarettes. On a massive scale. Emerging markets are an attractive target, simply because their governments lack the resources to implement proactive health policies, leaving the companies’ path clear.

As there’s never smoke without fire, we wanted to find out more about the content of cigarettes produced in Switzerland but sold in Morocco. We used an approach that is as far as we’re aware entirely innovative, undertaking a comparative study of the sulphur, nicotine and carbon monoxide content of cigarettes smoked in Europe and Morocco. It is not a simple task because there is no publicly available data on the matter. Admittedly, levels of substances are sometimes provided on the packaging, but it is unclear whether the levels are respected by producers. The ultimate question is whether Swiss cigarettes smoked in Morocco are the same as those sold in newsagents in Cointrin or in France. The only way to know for sure is to analyse samples.

We were informed by Adrian Kay, the spokesperson of the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP) that Switzerland has no “laboratory suitably equipped to carry out this task”. Yet, we did manage to find a laboratory able to undertake such an analysis: the Institute for Work and Health (IST) in Lausanne, a subsidiary of the CHUV (the Lausanne university hospital) which is part of the WTO’s network of certified laboratories.

An innovative smoke machine

To respond to our request, Gregory Plateel, head of laboratories, and analyst Nicolas Concha-Lozano had to build their own smoking machine. The method they use is practically ‘hand-made’: three containers to hold the cigarettes, a pump for inhalation and a jar where part of the smoke is concentrated. Nothing is left to chance – the machine is controlled by a computer which extracts 35ml samples over two seconds every minute.

To guarantee that the machine was correctly calibrated they started by testing a control cigarette “1R6F”. The control was an unbranded special sample for research laboratories provided by the University of Kentucky.

Once the cigarette has been ‘smoked’ by the machine, the smoke and filter was analysed to record the rates of full particles of nicotine and carbon monoxide. A single cigarette is clearly not representative, therefore to obtain reliable data they used samples taken from three separate packets and calculated the average of the three values. It took the researchers several weeks to complete the process.

Double standard

Gregory Plateel and Nicolas Concha-Lozano analysed no fewer than 30 packets of cigarettes from Morocco, France and Switzerland, which we provided to them in September. Their methodology was aligned with ISO standards which serve as a point of reference for all researchers who undertake such tests. In Switzerland and Europe, the authorities introduced the standard 10-1-10, which sets the maximum levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide that cigarettes sold on the Swiss or European market can contain, namely 10mg of tar, 1mg of nicotine and 10mg of carbon monoxide. The standard served as a reference point for the analysis of our samples.

The results are clear: the cigarettes produced on Swiss soil and sold in Morocco are much stronger, more addictive and more toxic than those sold in Switzerland or France.

The results reveal a double standard – Moroccans smoke cigarettes that are more harmful than those smoked by Europeans. For each substance tested, nearly all cigarettes produced in Switzerland and consumed in Morocco contained levels higher than that found in Swiss and French cigarettes.

A sample from a Winston cigarette, for example, contains over 16.31 milligrams of full particles per cigarette, in contrast to 10.5 for Winston Classics bought in Lausanne. In terms of levels of nicotine, the difference between the cigarettes sold in Morocco and Switzerland is particularly striking: according to IST’s results there are 1.28 miligrams per cigarette for ‘Swiss-made’ Camels sold in Morocco, in comparison to barely 0.75 miligrams in Camel Filters sold in Switzerland. In terms of carbon monoxide, which reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood, the level also differs greatly between Winston Blues smoked in Morocco (9.62 miligrams per cigarette) or Switzerland (5.45 miligrams). Despite the reassuring name, smoking Camel Lights in Casablanca means consuming cigarettes that are more harmful than the Camel Filters in Lausanne.

Since Morocco, we examined the supply chain to understand how tobacco is produced, because Switzerland is home to the giants of the industry and allows these lower quality cigarettes to be exported to developing countries.

We went to the only cigarette factory in the country whose director allowed us to enter: Koch & Gsell AG in Steinach. Located in an industrial area in the suburbs of St Gall, the company was set up in 2015 by Roger Koch, a 40-year-old from the German part of Switzerland, who previously owned a translation agency.

Great freedom

He now produces 30,000 packets of cigarettes a week, a small proportion of which is exported; the majority are consumed in Switzerland. He sometimes receives visits from the authorities. Civil servants from various cantonal bodies come to examine the safety of the machines and his employees’ working conditions, and to check that the production process is not causing environmental damage. He also knows customs agents because they check that products are declared correctly and taxes are paid to the last centime.

Lack of controls

What about checks on the content of cigarettes however? “This had never been checked before last October. Then the food inspection authorities took several samples to analyse. But we never heard anything back, I imagine they mostly tested for CBD (cannabidiol)”. Part of Roger Koch’s production does in fact contain the cannabis compound. For tests on other substances, every month he sends some hundred cigarettes to the ASL laboratory in Germany. It is tasked with testing the level of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide in line with the 10-1-10 standard introduced by the Swiss government.

Lax approach of the authorities

The federal decree on tobacco products stipulates that the following thresholds must be respected: “Anyone bringing cigarettes to market must be able to provide evidence that they comply with the applicable legal requirements”. In principle, cantons are tasked with verifying that this provision is respected. Do they manage to analyse cigarettes on the market? Or to ensure that producers are using legal ingredients, as is sometimes done with food distributors?

What happens if the results of Roger Koch’s Heimat cigarettes exceed these values? The laboratory’s report is not sent to the authorities but to different clients, such as the Coop retail company. There are no sanctions. “It’s up to us to make a change”, explains Roger Koch. The only solution is to slightly alter the mix of tobacco, because there is no silver bullet recipe for changing the levels of certain substances. It is possible to wash the tobacco with water, but this would impact on quality. It is also possible to perforate the filters in order to better aerate the absorption of smoke. But this is cheating slightly so we don’t do it.”

The list of permitted ingredients published on the OFSP website allows Roger Koch to put tens of products in his cigarettes. He does not, he tells us, because there is no such freedom within the European Union. He is planning on building a factory in Germany, just a few kilometres from Steinach, to sell his Heimat cigarettes in the EU.

The federal government in Berne is very reluctant to introduce stricter regulation. There is clearly no mystery as to why tobacco giants choose to be based in Switzerland. According to a KPMG report published in October 2017, the total income (direct, indirect and government revenue) provided by this industry is estimated at CHF 6.3 billion annually, equivalent to 1% of the country’s GDP. The sector provides some 11,500 direct jobs, offering employment to 0.2% of the working population. And that’s without counting indirect employment, such as tobacco farmers, linked to the sector.

The tax revenue is significant – the topic is surrounded by secrecy, although at Neuchâtel there are rumours that Philip Morris International contributes over half of the canton’s private-sector tax revenue.

Switzerland has more than one trick up its sleeve to seduce cigarette companies, but its particularly lax legislation is probably the best. Cigarettes and their content are regulated by the decree on tobacco products. According to the decree, authorised ingredients include all aromas from food products, sugar, honey, spices and all food sweeteners except two – sucralose and the salt of aspartame-acesulfame. It is possible to find a range of humectants, bleaching agents for the ash, combustion accelerators, preservatives and finally adhesive and binding agents.

Pascal Diethelm adds that the decree does not contain a single provision pertaining to the protection of consumer health. Moreover, “data from toxicologists regarding the additives used with and without combustion should be indicated in so far as the person submitting the declaration is aware of them”.

According to his analysis, the person submitting the declaration can simply state that they are not aware of the toxicological information for their ‘recipe’ to be authorised. By way of comparison, European regulations are far more restrictive.