Focus On Vaping & E-cigarettes: 18 February

By George Nott George.Nott@thegrocer.co.uk 

Publishing: 18 February 2023
Advertising deadline: 3 February 2023
Submissions deadline: 27 January 2023

ElfBar was an unlikely winner in The Grocer’s Top Products Survey for 2022. The Chinese disposable vape gained £314m in sales, mostly through convenience channels. It’s a credit to savvy marketing, as well as disposable vapes’ growth speeding ahead of rechargeable products. So now that ElfBar has arrived in supermarkets, how will vaping evolve in 2023 and especially disposables? What response can we expect from major tobacco suppliers, who have been making the transition from smokes to vapes? And will the success of ElfBar, including among younger demographics, prompt British regulators to have a rethink?

Channels: The rise of disposable vapes is a credit to convenience stores’ ability to incubate innovation before it makes it into supermarkets. With the major retailers now buying into the category, how will it affect shoppers’ purchasing patterns?

Open vs closed: While vapes generally did well in 2022, the biggest growth went to disposable products, with convenience clearly proving a draw for shoppers. How will this trajectory evolve over the coming year?

Regulation: The UK has retained its permissive approach to vape sales, in contrast to the EU which has mooted banning flavoured varieties. Might the surging popularity of the category lead to tougher rules on how it is sold, and especially its appeal to teens?

Innovations: We will profile 4 new products or ranges that have ideally not appeared in The Grocer before. We need launch date, rsp, and a hi-res picture of each