● Increasing prices across the tobacco category are pushing more consumers away from more expensive factory-made cigarettes towards roll-your-own, which has experienced a rise in volume despite the year-on-year drop in smokers.

● However, entry-level prices for roll-your-own are also on the increase as the minimum weight increased to 30g, wiping out the trade in 12.5g and 25g packs. 

● Even the 50g packs, which were not subject to change, still experienced a 6.5% increase to average prices, driven by continued government tax increases.

● The increase in prices and shoppers has fuelled value growth across all of the top 10 brands aside from Drum and Old Holborn.

● Gold Leaf was the biggest winner in terms of value growth, adding an extra £82.1m to its sales.

● The minimum size of 30g has resulted in some SKU rationalisation. Brands that played heavily in smaller sizes such as 12.5g have been hardest hit. Amber Leaf and Golden Virginia houses were particularly affected from a facings point of view. But with tobacco being sold behind a closed drawer or door, the impact of fewer facings is not as extreme for those brands as it would be for most other categories.

● Manufacturers have chosen to use the plain packaging change as a way of trying to reinforce the old names of their products for better memory recall. They have done this by renaming some of their products – for example, Golden Virginia changed to The Original Golden Virginia Classic.

● Impulse still holds the lion’s share of roll your own tobacco with 55.4% volume share of trade, but this has shifted 1.4ppts towards grocery. Convenience stores holds 72.3% volume share of trade but has also seen a shift of 0.8ppts towards larger stores.