Cigar Weekly

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Los Angeles – Without going into all of the legalese, the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit brushed aside the continued view of District Court Judge Robert Sweet that the Cohiba trademark belongs to the Cubans and confirmed, once again, its prior holding that the Cohiba trademark in the U.S. belongs to General Cigar.

According to Dan Carr, chief operating officer of General Cigar, "The Second Circuit court’s ruling upholds what we have always believed since we first filed a U.S. application to register the COHIBA trademark in 1978: that General Cigar is the rightful owner of Cohiba in the U.S. We continue to remain confident that our exclusive right to the Cohiba cigar brand in the U.S. will be upheld even if Cubatabaco attempts further legal efforts to challenge these rights."

Habanos, S.A.’s statement on its Web site read: "Cubatabaco is disappointed with today's decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but will pursue its available options to vindicate its right to the world famous Cohiba mark, which include, as the Court of Appeals previously held, prosecution of Cubatabaco's pending petition in the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel General Cigar's registration of COHIBA, and Cubatabaco's pending application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register Cohiba to Cubatabaco."

As regards the Second Circuit’s decision, the next step is for Cubatabaco to ask for the case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. That court declined to hear the case previously, but although not mentioned in the Habanos statement, it is likely that the Cubans will try.

>> "The big news is that the Torano family is back." That’s Torano Cigars president Charlie Torano, announcing that the Torano family is retaking control over the distribution of its own brands, currently under the control of C.A.O. International, effective August 1. At the same time, it will also change the name of its Miami-based distribution organization from Torano Cigars to Torano Family Cigar Company, using its newly-designed, coat-of-arms-style logo.

Although an obvious conclusion might be that the move is a direct result of the forthcoming mega-cigar venture merging Swedish Match’s General Cigar and Scandinavian Tobacco’s C.A.O. International, Torano was clear that these changes have been in the works for some time.

"From a timing standpoint, it was at the end of last year that we made the notification that, hey, we’re going to be taking back control of the brand. Having said that, given the time frame [of the Swedish Match-Scandinavian Tobacco joint venture], it speeded it up a little bit. It didn’t affect the decision; the decision had been made, but it did impact the timing. It sped it up, probably by about five or six months.

"When people see what we’re going, they’ll gain an appreciation that this is a new look and feel for Torano, in a fresh direction that’s clearly a result of the planning which has been going on for a long time. We had a good run with C.A.O., it worked for both of us. We had a unique relationship with them, and they manufactured our cigars for us. But there’s no better place for the brand than with the family.

"We continue to work with what was our factory organization that we sold, we continue to be involved. But, at the same time we’re exploring different relationships with a couple of different factories, with people that we respect, with tobacco that’s different and new as well. Torano will not just be making cigars exclusively at the factories that we sold, but we will be working with other, small, boutique factories to make our new blends."

To that end, the new Torano organization is prepping its coming-out party for the trade at August’s International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association convention and trade show in New Orleans, with three new brands to be formally introduced: Master by Carlos Torano, Single Region and Brigade.

"We’re making Single Region with [Fabrica de Tabacos] Raices Cubanas," noted Torano. "We’re making Master with a very small boutique factory in Nicaragua called American Caribbean Cigars and we’re making Brigade with San Rafael, owned by Oscar Olivas."

Torano added that "The retail exclusives are going to be both Single Region and Master. This is the only time we’ve ever done that, and the focus of our launch at IPCPR will be retailers. That is the heart of what we’re launching: when you see ‘Torano’ and the new brands that are coming out of the new Torano Family Cigar Company, it is retail-exclusive brands.

"To me, I’m not focused on my volume on how many millions of cigars I want to sell. If we do all these things correctly, if we really work on creating the Torano community and come out with exciting new blends and brands, if we’re interacting and meeting the people, then the sales and the growth comes. So I’m not overly focused on how much we’re going to sell, but rather on how we’re going to grow the awareness of the brand.

"It’s going to be about relationships. I think the future for family cigar companies is extremely bright."

>> "I’m part of this new generation of business people in Honduras, where Honduras is still an agricultural country. So we’re trying to give back to what we took.

"My father tells me stories of when he got to Honduras in ‘62. Everything was jungle and, of course, to grow tobacco, you need some fields. And to make cigar boxes, you need the cedar . . . So we’ve taken a whole new environmental approach. Bayer has helped us with their better agricultural practices, so in the farms, we leave absolutely zero footprint on the environment and [in] the factories, we’ve also changed the culture of our workers. Our cigars now are 100% hygenic."

That’s Camacho Cigars chief Christian Eiroa, during a July 12th interview with Tobin Smith on the "Small Business Spotlight" segment on Fox Business Channel’s "America’s Nightly Scorecard."

"We’re trying to do things differently," Eiroa said. "The Bayer thing is a real interesting project. It’s funny, because with Bayer you have this impression in the U.S. that all they do is make aspirin, but they really are very much involved in the whole agricultural process in Central and Latin America."

Camacho, now a unit of Swiss-owned Oettinger Imex – also the owner of Davidoff – announced that it has become a member of the Bayer CropScience’s Food Chain Management Program, signing an agreement with the German biochem firm on June 29.

"It’s an amazing feeling being the world’s first tobacco company to have partnered with Bayer CropScience," said Eiroa in a statement. The written announcement explained that "With this new alliance, Camacho Cigars has become the only tobacco company in history to be in compliance with strict international standards for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). By complying with the practices set forth by Bayer CropScience, Camacho Cigars ensures the responsible management of natural resources, bio-friendly pesticides, industrial safety, and biosecurity. The Food Chain Partnership is the first of many steps in Camacho’s plan for a higher level of social responsibility and its furtherance in manufacturing the highest quality cigars in the world."

During the interview on Fox Business, Eiroa emphasized how close the connection is today between cigars made in Cuba and those made elsewhere. "The thing that I always try to explain to people is that the cigar industry outside of Cuba, in Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, was actually started by the same people who started by the same Cubans who started the industry in Cuba.

"The cigars are fantastic, we use some of the same seeds that were around in Cuba, just we use different growing practices. In fact, Bayer helped us with better growing practices and better manufacturing practices, which is what we just finished doing with them now.

"The tobacco process is so interesting. By the time a cigar is done, about 300 hands have touched that project. And one thing that makes it so unique is that we start all the way from the plants and the farms. We grow the tobacco, we do the fermentation ourselves, we roll the cigars, we make the cigar boxes, we do it all. So we can’t blame anybody."

>> Short fillers: Find our latest tasting review, of six Cuban "alumni" brands which have prospered in Dominican and Honduran versions, in our News & Views archives for July 16.

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