PMI Poland has completed an investment of nearly 1 billion PLN ($260 million) in its Krakow plant for modernization and the creation of more than 300 new jobs. The investment enables the plant to produce the latest IQOS ILUMA I tobacco inserts.
Core points to watch:
1. PMI International Poland completed an investment of nearly 1 billion PLN ($260 million) for the modernization of the Krakow plant, creating more than 300 new jobs.
2. The plant was expanded to include a new heated tobacco insert production line for the IQOS ILUMA I inserts.
3. The CEO of PMI Northeast Europe said the company is transitioning from a cigarette maker to a manufacturer of smokeless products, and that global cigarette sales have declined by 28% since the launch of the IQOS.
Philip Morris Polska Distribution Sp. z oo has completed an investment of nearly 1 billion PLN ($260 million) in its Kraków plant. Polanddaily24 reported on April 3, for the modernization of the plant. The investment was used to modernize the plant, creating more than 300 new jobs in Kraków.
The investment enables the factory to produce tobacco inserts for the latest IQOS ILUMA i. Significantly, the inserts use tobacco grown locally in Poland. Over the past decade, PMI has purchased more than 40,000 tons of tobacco directly from Polish farmers.
The modernization of PMI’s Krakow plant included the addition of a new line of heated tobacco inserts. These inserts are not only placed on the Polish market but are also exported to international markets including EU countries and Asia, with Japan being a key destination. The IQOS device was launched globally for the first time in Japan in 2014.
Michał Mierzejewski. President of PMI Northeast Europe, said.
- “We are phasing out cigarettes faster globally than other tobacco companies. Since the launch of IQOS, we have reduced cigarette sales on the global market by 28%. Now, our Krakow plant is joining the vanguard of the global transformation from a cigarette manufacturer to a smokeless product manufacturer.”
- “We are one of the largest American investors in Poland. In total, we have invested more than PLN 27 billion ($7.1 billion) here. We are the largest taxpayer and employer in the industry, providing jobs for more than 7,000 people in the country.”
PMI notes that more than $14 billion has been invested in scientific research, technology development and the commercialization of new tobacco products. The development of heated tobacco in IQOS was made possible by collaboration with engineers from International Tobacco Machinery (ITM) in Radom, Poland. PMI’s new tobacco products are now sold in 95 markets worldwide.
According to international estimates, more than one billion people worldwide still smoke. In Poland, there are more than 8 million smokers.
