Welcome back Snustopians!I’ve been sitting here in my office at the Ministry of Information all week, recalling all the beautiful things I saw in Gothenburg and the wonderful people I met, trying to figure out how I would communicate all of this to you. While it all seems like some wonderful dream, I was having a hard time believing it actually happened! As you all know, it’s been my ultimate dream to be able to go to Sweden and actually see, with my own eyes, how Swedish snus was made so I could tell everyone here in Snustopia and it finally came true via the great folks at Swedish Match. But how can I make it feel like you all have been there and put what I’ve learned in a format that everyone could understand? That’s when it hit me! Why not take everyone on a virtual tour!
“Hey Snus Guy, are you going to make us wear those goofy looking 3D glasses or have us buy some expensive helmet to do this?” Well…….while I wish I had the funding to do that, I think putting this article in my typical review format, and include pictures for each step in the process, we can forgo the expensive equipment and still get the point across! So, if everyone’s ready, grab a glass of your drink of choice, a comfy chair and a tin of snus and we’ll begin our tour of the way real Swedish snus is made!
Before we begin, I’d like to thank all the great people at Swedish Match AB’s Gothenburg and Kungälv factories as well as the guys from the Stockholm Headquarters for a fun and extremely informative tour! Without their willingness to share the Swedish Experience with me, this review would not have been possible. Tack så mycket! With that said, since the factories I toured were Swedish Match’s, we’ll be referencing their brands in this tour but, the basic manufacturing processes, save a few proprietary ones, can be said of most Swedish snus that follows the GothiaTek standard. Ok, let’s begin!
As with all Swedish snus the first, and most abundant, ingredient is tobacco, but not just any tobacco. Swedish Match uses a blend of tobaccos from around the world in their snus. Tobaccos from Nicaragua, South Africa,
Spain and America are used just to name a few. Once these tobaccos are air-dried, blended and packed, they are shipped to the factory where they are taken to the grinder and ground to the specifications of the snus they happen to be making. The picture to the right shows the bales of tobacco being prepped prior to entering the grinder! “Hey, is that you Snus Guy smelling the tobacco? How does it really smell?” Yes, the one in the middle is me. The guy on the right is Larry Waters from SnusCENTRAL.org and the one on the left is Andreas Riksén, Master tobacco grinder and our guide thru the grinding process. Andreas is very passionate about what he does, as are all the great folks at Swedish Match, and allowed us to feel and smell the raw tobacco, something that outsiders rarely get to do! I know, you asked about the smell. That’s something that may surprise you!Unless you’ve been to an actual tobacco ageing barn or have smelled tobacco prior to processing, it can be very hard to describe all the scents that raw tobacco has. As I stood there, holding the big chunk of tobacco, a myriad of scents began to come out. The first scent was of a pile of autumn leaves, like the kind you would rake up in a big pile and jump into when you were young. The next scent was of raw leather, like a new leather glove or shoe. The final scent was of peat. Peat has an earthy, mossy scent that, when combined with the others, creates a true fall foliage smell that reminded me of when I was growing up in Northern Illinois and playing in the leaf piles my Grandpop would rake up, without the “Hey you damn kids! Get outta there, I just raked those up!” we’d normally hear! This scent is pretty much prevalent throughout the entire factory but was the strongest at the grinder.
Once the tobacco bundles, which are about as big as a small deep freezer,
are unboxed, they travel up a conveyor to the grinding mills. The grinding mills look just like a flour mill and pretty much work the same way. Since this step was proprietary, I couldn’t take any pictures with exception to the one on the left. The guy in the picture is Joakim, one of the team from the Stockholm office, and he takes this very seriously as you can see by the “Area 51” reference he’s pointing to, so a small flour mill is the best way to describe it! Once the tobacco is ground, it’s moved to a sifting box that shakes rapidly and separates the ground tobacco into sizes. If it’s not the right size, it goes back into the grinding mill until it is. Like I said, the tobacco grinding process is very similar to the flour milling process. From here, the tobacco goes to the steam pasteurizing area.Here is where real Swedish snus begins! Up until now, tobacco was manipulated by human hands. From here on out, the process is hands free meaning, untouched by human hands until you Snustopians open a can of your favorite and use it! This is where we begin to see the GothiaTek process in action. “Hey Snus Guy, we’ve heard of the GothiaTek process! That’s where the snus has to conform to the same safety standards as food in Sweden, right?” Exactly! You guys have been paying attention! The GothiaTek process was created by Swedish Match and has pretty much become a standard in snus making throughout Sweden. Here, in the pasteurization room, a big rotating dryer actually uses heat and steam to cure the tobacco. American Smokeless tobacco, like Copenhagen and Skoal, uses fire curing to achieve its flavor where the steam does in Swedish snus. This is done at a lower temperature than fire curing and keeps the TSNA’s low.
The GothiaTek part is more of a health and safety process. In the factory there are 3 “zones” where you have to wear certain coverings like lab coats, shoe covers and hair nets. In the picture to the right, we’ve just come out of a “Yellow” zone. You may see someone in that picture you may not know. Although the four of us look like a screen shot from a Marx brother’s movie, the guy on the right, across from me, is Markus, another member of the team from Stockholm. “Yellow” zones mean lab coats and shoe coverings since we are near the machines but, they are sealed meaning you can’t touch the snus.
The area we just emerged from was the paper can manufacturing area for loose snus. This area was one of the most interesting for me since Swedish Match is the only snus manufacturer that still uses paper cans for their loose varieties of snus! Even though this part of the factory is proprietary, I can tell you that the cans start out as rolls of paper and come out cans. It was pretty interesting to see them made! The next part of the factory was the flavoring room!
The flavoring room is where, you guessed it, flavorings are added to the snus! Since this area of the factory
holds the flavoring machines, it’s pretty quiet and plain. All there is in this part of the factory are large, insulated drums that mix the flavorings in to the snus. There are a few interesting things here though. The first thing is that the machines are actually made by the same company that manufactures Tanks for the Swedish military! This means, to me anyway, that these machines are built to a quality standard and will last a long time! But that’s not the most interesting thing. You see, the flavoring machines are actually on the 3rd floor of the factory! “Snus Guy, why would flavoring machines being on the 3rd floor of the factory be so interesting?” Remember when I said that after the grinder, the snus is never touched by human hands? Well, how do you think the snus gets from the flavoring machines to the packaging line? Probably the same way I thought it got there, by dumping it into a hopper. Well, I was wrong!The way it gets to the line is when the snus is completely flavored, which can take a long time, it’s ejected thru the bottom of the flavoring machines, via a pipe system, down to the packaging line on the first floor. There are two dedicated packaging lines here at the Gothenburg factory as well as two at Kungälv, one for loose snus and another for portions. The only differences in the lines between the two
factories are that at Kungälv, they package the portion snus with the “Star” pattern in the can like General Onyx and General White portion. This process is extremely protected and the only thing I can tell you is that it’s pretty cool. They also make all White portion snus there as well. Original portions, like Kronan, Ettan and General Original are made at Gothenburg. That brings us to the process that makes Original or Regular portion snus. I think you’ll be surprised!Swedish snus is pretty much put into the portion material and packaged by machine. I know that was a no brainer but the speed and complexity in
which they make a portion is mind boggling! It’s even more mind boggling when you consider that portions are made by the machine at a rate of about 2 per second and the error rate is around 2%! But understand that the errors also include under or over filled cans, misaligned labels and things that will not allow it to pass GothiaTek standards! “Snus Guy, if a can is not filled or a label is crooked, they consider it an error? Why not just add the missing portions or put a new label the can?” While it would be the easy way to reduce an already really low error rate, the GothiaTek standard is still in force here, any snus that doesn’t make the cut, gets destroyed, end of story. I know it sounds cruel but, if sacrificing a few cans is what it takes to be the best, I can live with that! “Snus guy, that’s pretty cool and all, but not that surprising. What are you leaving out?” Let’s discuss that now!In all the reviews I’ve ever read since I began using Swedish snus, be it in a formal review, a forum thread or from people I’ve talked to that have used Swedish snus longer than I have, all agreed that the distinction between an original or regular portion and a White portion was the extra step of wetting the portion with a “snus juice” during the production process. I’ve even written many reviews on regular portions that have said just that. Well Snustopians, I’ve seen the regular portion production process and am here to tell you that the magical “snus juice” we’ve all been hearing about is………..water! “Snus Guy! It can’t be just water! The portions are just a brown as the snus and the juice tastes like snus, how can it be just water?” I was just as amazed as you are now but I’ve seen the process! But, at the end of the tour it all became clear.
The final process is the packaging and storing of the snus. This is done in a “Cool room”. Once the snus is
packed in 10 can logs, it’s put in cases and moved into the cool room to rest for at least two days. The room is large but not as big as you may think. This picture is of Larry and I in the cool room at the Gothenburg factory. If I had to venture a guess, they wouldn’t give us the exact dimensions of the room, I’d say it’s about 20,000 Sq. Ft., and holds approximately 4 million cans of snus! “Whoa, Snus Guy, 4 million cans of snus in only 20,000 Sq. Ft. of space? Can’t be!” I thought the same thing until I began to do the math. If you figure there are 10 cans of snus in each roll, and 20 rolls in each box, that’s 200 cans per box! Depending on how many are on a pallet, perhaps 40, that’s 8,000 per pallet so, as you can see in this picture, there are 22 pallets just in this line. There are 176,000 cans just in this line alone so, you really don’t need a lot of space! “Snus Guy, you’re rambling again! What does this have to do with the portions and the wetting process?” You’re right. It was just really intriguing to see that much snus is such a small space! Let’s go on to the end process.The end process is basically right where we were, in the “cool room”. The snus stays in the cool room for 2 to 4 days to rest. This is where, in the regular portions, the magic happens. During this time, the water melds with the snus to create a more flavorful snus and transforms the plain water into the “snus juice” we’re all accustomed to. This is also when the portion material turns brown from its original white color. From here, the completed snus gets shipped all over Sweden and other parts of the world, including the U.S.!
Well Snustopians, that’s pretty much how real Swedish snus is made. I know we kind of ran thru the process but in future reviews, I’ll be adding other things I’ve learned like the tobacco selection process, the way snus manufacturers select the flavors and the shapes of the cans and many other things!
I really hope you all found this virtual tour informative, fun and a little educational. All these pictures, and more of our trip to Sweden, can be found in the slideshow at the top left of this page! I really look forward to your questions and comments and will try to answer them all as soon as I can! So, until our next review,
Happy Snusing!
That Snus Guy
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