Discontinued Habanos
In an ever-increasing urge to gain extra profits, Habanos S.A. has decided to dramatically change the way they make and market cigars, following a system that
better fits into an efficient free-market global economy, that is intended to give cigar smokers what they have been asking for. Of the 549 vitolas that were manufactured in 1992, at the beginning of Cuba's "Special Period," by the end of 2003, only 319 will remain in production. The rest will go the way of the La Flor del Cano Short Churchills, or the Bolivar Gold Medals, cigars that are never to be made again, aside from the occasional “special limited production” cigars that are only sold with a luxury custom-made humidor for thousands of dollars.
When it comes to this streamlining of production, it would seem that the impetus for this change did not come from within Havana. It would seem that the idea came from abroad. In 1999, after conducting buy-outs and mergers with a myriad of cigar-producing companies around the world, Altadis S.A. made one of it’s biggest purchases to date, with a 50% buy-out worth $500,000,000US of Habanos S.A., the Cuban government’s marketing and distribution wing for sales of Cuban cigars and tobacco. This buy-out, was a tremendous sum of hard currency that Habanos S.A. so desperately needed. If one took the net sales of last year as an indicator, that sum of money would be equivalent to Habanos S.A.'s sales over a period of about 3 1/2 years. Needless to say, Altadis S.A. undoubtedly wishes to increase the sales and profitability of the Cuban cigars. Altadis S.A.'s motivation is influenced by four things, output, supply, demand, and the US trade embargo.
Through the recommendations of Altadis S.A., Habanos S.A. will continue to manufacture only 33 marquees of cigars. The La Corona line, founded in 1844 in Havana, will have its production in Havana discontinued. The La Corona line of cigars will continue to be made in the Dominican Republic, using tobaccos from the Dominican Republic and Conneticut, as Altadis S.A. owns the rights to distribute this in the United States, so therefore, they can hence market this Dominican-made version world-wide. Of the 33 remaining marquees, almost all will see major changes. Instead of having varying degrees of quality within the grand marquees, Habanos S.A. has decided to do what Altadis S.A. did with their line of cigars. The grand marquees will only contain premium and super-premium “totalamente a mano” hand-rolled cigars. This will allow consumers to better understand just what sort of cigar they are buying, however for the cigar connoisseur on a budget, things will become a little more difficult. Currently the Bolivar, H. Upmann, Hoyo de Monterrey, Partagas, Punch, Ramon Allones, and Romeo y Julietta marquees are produced using the “totalamente a mano” method, the “tripia corta” machine-bunched hand-finished method, and the “mecanizado” machine made methods. After the close of 2003, these marquees will only be made using the “totalamente a mano” method. The “tripia corta” cigars have their wrapper put on by hand, and a good deal of effort goes into producing these cigars, however Habanos S.A. does not charge all that much for them, and hence they are a good value. However, as some types of cigars are made three different ways, one who rarely smokes Cuban cigars is met with a bewildering set of choices. Some cigars, like the Romeo y Julietta Romeo No. 1 Tubos, are manufactured utilizing all three processes. The Romeo No. 1 Tubos that is totally machine-made is the cheapest, and retails for $43.75US per box of 25 in Havana, while the Romeo No. 1 machine-bunched hand-finished line retails for $55.00US per box of 25 in Havana, while the “totalamente a mano” Romeo No. 1 Tubos de Luxe retails for $116.25US per box of 25 in Havana. As the hand made version is over 100% more expensive than the hand finished cigars, but utilize the same tobacco that is in short supply, if Habanos S.A. were to only sell the hand-made variants, they would make far more money than they would utilizing the same resources. Furthermore, as torcedors from time to time cannot work, as there is not enough tobacco to roll cigars every day of the year, this better utilization of tobacco will make it harder for torcedors to seek extra-legal employment as black-market torcedors, as they are kept busy in the factories. Freeing up more of the long-filler tobacco to be utilized in premium flagship vitolas will allow Habanos S.A. to make even more money. Furthermore, in the future, only Belinda, Quintero, Jose L Pidera, Gispert, La Flor del Cano, Cabanas, Los Statos de Luxe, and Troya will be made by the “tripia corta” or “mecanizado” methods, however the Partagas line will have one vitola made by the “tripia corta” method, the exception being the Partagas Culebras. It would be important to note that this market strategy is employed by Altadis USA, as their premium marquees are all hand-made long-filler cigars, while their mass-market marquees solely consist of machine-made short-filler cigars. By separating premium cigars from mass-market machine made cigars, the occasional Habanos smoker will not be turned off from a particular brand, as the current state of affairs could leave one with the impression that a certain marquee, or worse Habanos in general are sub-standard, if that person was smoking a machine-made short-filler cigar, which can be erratic. Furthermore, many of the machine made Habanos are made utilizing machinery from the era of the Second World War. Some have compared these cigars to the work of an one-armed blind torcedor, and Habanos S.A. obviously would wish to distance its grand marquees from their uglier machine made counterparts. Altadis S.A. has also seen to better meet another demand for Cuban tobacco more efficiently. When a cigar is created, you have the long filler leaves that go into the cigar, and bits of leaves that are created as the bunch of the cigar is cut. While this by-product can be utilized for short-filler machine made cigars, as they have in the past, because the blend of tobaccos was similar. As the premium marquees have their short-filler products eliminated from their portfolio, Altadis S.A. has found a more profitable way to utilize these short filler tobaccos. Altadis S.A. has arranged the shipment of modern cigarillo producing machines to Cuba, so Habanos S.A. can produce cigarillos for export for all of their major brands, just like Altadis USA does for their cigars in the Dominican Republic. However, machine made cigars will not be the only type of cigars to be cut. To prop up the demand for the niche market Cuaba marquee, only Cuaba will continue to make perfecto vitolas. The Partagas Presidente, the Romeo y Julietta Celestes Finos, and the flagship of the Fonseca line, the Fonseca Invictos will not be produced after 2003. Also, as the El Rey Del Mundo Tanios, La Gloria Cubana Tanios, Partagas Churchills de Luxe, Ramon Allones Petit Coronas, Ramon Allones Coronas have such miniscule production levels, they are surely unprofitable, and will be cut. Furthermore, so that Habanos S.A. can continue to produce the maximum number of the vitolas that sell the most, vitolas within a marquee that have the same dimensions, but different blends will be axed. Such overlapping that exists with the corona gordas of the Punch marquee, with the Punch Royal Selection No. 11, the Punch Black Prince, the Punch Super Selection No. 1, and the Punch Punch, will be eliminated. As with Darwinian struggle, only the best selling cigar of a vitola will survive, in this case being the Punch Punch. Most notable of these cuts will be the Romeo y Julietta Prince of Wales, as it has the same size as the more popular Romeo y Julietta Churchill. Like with the distinction Altadis USA delineates between machine-made marquees and premium long-filler hand-made marquees, Altadis S.A. eliminated whatever overlap existed in their lines of cigars, with the exception of special release cigars and cigars with different wrappers (ie. Conneticut Shade, Maduro, and the Nicuraguan-grown Havana 2000). These changes are obviously so Habanos S.A. can be able to bring to
market as much of the well known vitolas as possible, to increase demand among the average cigar smoker, as the grand marquees will have a greater chance of being in stock, and the simplification of the lines will better allow the occasional smoker of Habanos to better understand the range of Habanos, hopefully leading to the creation a greater pool of regular Habanos smokers. With the global market for Habanos, the continued production of these vitolas would be hard to justify economically. The Habanos portfolio - according to international demand and the market structures have been divided into four groups. The “marcas globales” (global brands) which contains the Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julietta, Partagas, Hoyo de Monterrey, and Quintero marquees. The “marcas mulitilocales” (multi-local brands), which consists of the Punch, Bolivar, H. Upmann, Vegas Robaina, Fonseca and Jose L. Piedra marquees. “Marcas locales” (local brands), which are sold only by market importance in certain countries, represent only 18 marquees, being the Rafael Gonzalez, Ramon Allones, El Rey Del Mundo, Saint Luis Rey, La Gloria Cubana, Juan Lopez, La Flor del Cano, Por Larranga, Sancho Panza, Vegueros, Diplomaticos, Quai d’Orsay, Los Statos de Luxe, Troya, Belinda, Cabanas, and Gispert. To round out Habanos S.A.’s portfolio, there are the three “marcas de nicho y especiales,” the niche market brands, however they have some modicum of global distribution, which are the Trinidad, Cuaba and San Cristobal de la Habana. Doubtlessly, this reorganization has been better tailored to better suit the global demand of Habanos. Furthermore, another demand that Habanos S.A. will likely do something to reorganize is their tobaccos that they export. As Habanos S.A. seeks to increase demand for cigars made in Cuba, export of Cuban tobacco to Europe and the Canary Islands will more than likely diminish, as all companies who are not a part of Altadis S.A. are effectively siphoning off tobacco from what could potentially be something Altadis S.A. would sell. This especially likely, as the amount of money that Habanos S.A. earns from the sale of raw tobacco is a mere fraction of what they make from the sale of finished cigars.
In all, the following vitolas are to be cut:
Bolivar:
Bolivar Belvederes
Bolivar Champions
Bolivar Chicos
Bolivar Panetelas
Bolivar Petit Coronas Especiales
El Rey Del Mundo:
El Rey Del Mundo Tanios
Fonseca:
Fonseca Invictos
H. Upmann:
H. Upmann Amatistas
H. Upmann Aromaticos
H. Upmann Belvederes
H. Upmann Coronas Major
H. Upmann Coronas Minor
H. Upmann Epicures
H. Upmann Especiales
H. Upmann Lonsdales
H. Upmann Majestic
H. Upmann No. 3
H. Upmann Petit Coronas
H. Upmann Petit Upmann
H. Upmann Regallias
H. Upmann Royal Coronas
H. Upmann Singulares
H. Upmann Super Coronas
Hoyo de Monterrey:
Hoyo de Monterrey Exquisitos
Hoyo de Monterrey Hoyo Coronas
Hoyo de Monterrey Palmas Extra
Hoyo de Monterrey Short Coronas
Hoyo de Monterrey Souvenir de Luxe
La Corona:
La Corona Belvederes
La Corona Coronas
La Corona Coronitas
La Corona Demi-Tasse
La Corona Pantella
La Corona Perfecto
La Corona Petit
La Corona Petit Cetros
La Corona Petit Corona
La Gloria Cubana:
La Gloria Cubana Tanios
Partagas:
Partagas 8-9-8 Unvarnished
Partagas Aristocrats
Partagas Belvederes
Partagas Churchill de Luxe
Partagas Coronas Junior
Partagas Coronas Senior
Partagas Chichos
Partagas Eminentes
Partagas Habaneros
Partagas Half Corona
Partagas Londres en Cedro
Partagas Londres Extra
Londres Finos
Partagas Mille Fleurs
Partagas Panetelas
Partagas Parisanos
Partagas Partagas de Luxe
Partagas Partagas de Partagas No.1
Partagas Perfectos
Partagas Personales
Partagas Petit Bouquet
Partagas Petit Coronas Especial
Partagas Petit Coronas Tubos
Partagas Petit Partagas
Partagas Presidentes
Partagas Princess
Partagas Selection Privada No.1
Partagas Super Partagas
Partagas Toppers
Punch:
Punch Belvederes
Punch Black Prince
Punch Coronations
Punch Exquisitos
Punch Margaritas
Punch Palmas Reales
Punch Petit Coronations
Punch Royal Coronations
Punch Royal Selections No.11
Punch Royal Selections No.12
Punch Seleccion de Luxe No. 2
Punch Souvenir de Luxe
Punch Super Selection No.1
Punch Tres Petit Coronas
Ramon Allones:
Ramon Allones Belvederes
Ramon Allones Bits of Havana
Ramon Allones Coronas
Ramon Allones Delgados
Ramon Allones Mille Fleurs
Ramon Allones Pantellas
Ramon Allones Petit Coronas
Ramon Allones Ramondos
Ramon Allones Ramonitas
Romeo y Julietta:
Romeo y Julietta Belvederes
Romeo y Julietta Chichos
Romeo y Julietta Celestiale Finos
Romeo y Julietta Clarines
Romeo y Julietta Club Kings
Romeo y Julietta Coronitas en Cedro
Romeo y Julietta Coronitas
Romeo y Julietta Exceptionales
Romeo y Julietta Exquistos
Romeo y Julietta Favoritas
Romeo y Julietta Montagues
Romeo y Julietta Mille Fleurs
Romeo y Julietta Nacionales
Romeo y Julietta Palmas Reales
Romeo y Julietta Pantelas
Romeo y Julietta Perfectos
Romeo y Julietta Prince of Wales
Romeo y Julietta Regalia de la Habana
Romeo y Julietta Regalia de Londres
Romeo y Julietta Romeo No.1 (Machine bunched-Hand
Finished/Machine Made)
Romeo y Julietta Romeo No.2 (Machine bunched-Hand
Finished/Machine Made)
Romeo y Julietta Romeo No.3 (Machine bunched-Hand
Finished/Machine Made)
Romeo y Julietta Sport Largos
