TAAT™ Now Selling in Tobacco Retailers Throughout Greater London
LAS VEGAS and VANCOUVER, December 17, 2021 - TAAT™ GLOBAL ALTERNATIVES INC. (CSE: TAAT) (OTCQX: TOBAF) (FRANKFURT: 2TP) (the “Company” or “TAAT™”) is pleased to announce that TAAT™ is now selling in tobacco retailers across the Greater London area of the United Kingdom, primarily in the borough of Croydon. In a May 20, 2021 press release, the Company outlined the unique competitive advantages it stood to benefit from by selling TAAT™ in the United Kingdom to include a lower price point, as well as its exemption from federal U.K. laws that mandate “plain packaging” of tobacco products (i.e., TAAT™ can be sold in colourful branded packages). Moreover, TAAT™ could later capitalize on an impending market gap in the tobacco category in the United Kingdom after cigarette giant Philip Morris International announced in July 2021 that it was planning to discontinue sales of tobacco cigarettes in the country by the end of the decade1.
In October 2021, the first commercial shipment of TAAT™ arrived in the U.K., as a partial fulfillment of more than CAD $1,200,000 worth of purchase orders from Green Global Earth (“GGE”), the Company’s exclusive distributor for TAAT™ in the United Kingdom. GGE has leveraged the unique value propositions of TAAT™ to place all three varieties in at least 17 confirmed points of sale across Greater London, pending reports of additional verified retail placements. GGE has also obtained a finalized Confirmation of Registration from the National Health Service (“NHS”) for each specific variety of TAAT™, further to the initial general Confirmation of Registration issued by Public Health England in August 2021.
London-area retailers currently carrying TAAT™ are afforded a far greater degree of flexibility with respect to how the product is positioned at the point of sale for the purpose of capturing the interest of smokers of legal age in-store, compared to products that contain tobacco. Additionally, as mentholated tobacco cigarettes were made illegal in the United Kingdom in May 20202, tobacco retailers carrying TAAT™ are now able to offer their customers who are smokers of legal age an option to enjoy a substantially similar smoking experience with a menthol taste.
All three TAAT™ varieties are now sold in at least 17 points of sale in the Greater London area of the United Kingdom, where store operators are not restricted by tobacco retailing regulations as TAAT™ is not a tobacco product. In many stores in the U.K., such as the Croydon-based off-license whose counter is pictured above, signage for menthol flavouring accessories to tobacco cigarettes is often displayed prominently as smokers of legal age in the United Kingdom have been unable to purchase mentholated cigarettes since May 2020. Because TAAT™ is able to offer a menthol-flavoured experience without the use of ancillary products, the Company believes it can successfully capitalize on this relatively new gap in the U.K. tobacco market.
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TAAT™ Chief Executive Officer Setti Coscarella commented, “We have been launching TAAT™ all over the United States for the past year, and we are thrilled to be executing our first international launch in the Greater London area. Similar to what we did in Ohio last December, we are focusing on specific areas of Greater London such as Croydon where GGE believes there are strategic advantages to launching TAAT™ before expanding into other regions of the United Kingdom. Something you’ll notice in many U.K. convenience stores and other tobacco retailers is that it is very common for them to advertise various products that impart a menthol taste and scent into regular cigarettes, since menthol tobacco cigarettes cannot be sold in the United Kingdom anymore. This is one aspect of the U.K. market that we are building our commercialization strategy around, as we continue executing our first launch of TAAT™ outside of the United States.”
Sources
2 - https://www.acs.org.uk/advice/menthol-ban
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,
TAAT™ GLOBAL ALTERNATIVES INC.
“Setti Coscarella”
Setti Coscarella, CEO and Director
For further information, please contact:
TAAT™ Investor Relations
1-833-TAAT-USA (1-833-822-8872)
THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE (“CSE”) HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE, NOR HAS OR DOES THE CSE’S REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER.
About TAAT™ Global Alternatives Inc.
The Company has developed TAAT™, which is a tobacco-free and nicotine-free alternative to traditional cigarettes offered in "Original", "Smooth", and "Menthol" varieties. TAAT™'s base material is Beyond Tobacco™, a proprietary blend which undergoes a patent-pending refinement technique causing its scent and taste to resemble tobacco. Under executive leadership with "Big Tobacco" pedigree, TAAT™ was launched first in the United States in Q4 2020 as the Company seeks to position itself in the $814 billion1 global tobacco industry.
For more information, please visit http://taatglobal.com.
References
1 British American Tobacco - The Global Market
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