BAT Nigeria - Manufacturing
Manufacturing in British American Tobacco’s West and Central Africa Area is done at the state-of-the-art factory located in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria.
We never set out to encourage people to take up smoking cigarettes, or to smoke more. Our cigarette business is based on understanding and meeting the preferences of today’s adult smokers with products that are manufactured to high standards and marketed responsibly.
Cigarettes
Content: Not all cigarettes are the same. Smokers around the world prefer many different tastes and strengths and we aim for excellence in every step of manufacturing.
The road to quality cigarettes begins with the arrival of raw materials, which are then converted into finished goods. The quality processed tobacco leaf, which is the most important material is firstly conditioned and then carefully blended with the ingredients that the brand recipe calls for. The filters and type of papers used are all chosen to affect the sensory strength and smoke yield of the cigarette.
Quality, as always, is a top priority, and each cigarette is automatically quality controlled, and physically checked to ensure products are of the right standard. Packing machines assemble packs around the cigarettes, to preserve taste and freshness
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How cigarettes work
A standard cigarette have four basic components:
- The tobacco rod
- The cigarette paper
- The tipping paper
- The filter
When the tobacco rod is lit, the user inhales smoke through the filter.
The preferences of adult smokers guide the types and blends of tobaccos that we use in the tobacco rod. We do not add nicotine to our tobacco; it occurs naturally in all varieties of tobacco plants.
Food-type ingredients and flavourings are added to some types of cigarettes – typically American style blends – to balance the natural tobacco taste, replace sugars lost in curing and give individual brands their characteristic tobacco flavour and aroma. Other ingredients may control moisture, protect against microbial degradation and act as binders or fillers.
Filters are traditionally made from cellulose acetate fibres, known as tow. Recent innovations include flavour capsules in filters and tube filters. The filter, paper and type of filter are all chosen to affect the sensory strength and smoke yield of the cigarette.
Filter biodegradability
Our filter tips are biodegradable over a period of between a month and three years, depending on environmental conditions. Although we are researching more rapid breakdown, at present we know of no practical way of making consumer-acceptable filters that would degrade so quickly that they would not cause short-term littering problems.
Health risks of smoking
Smoking poses real risks of serious diseases. That is why we are working to develop products that may be recognised as potentially reduced risk products.
Nicotine
Read more about nicotine on our Group website .
Why do cigarettes pose serious health risks?
The reason why cigarettes can be harmful to health is because burning tobacco generates toxicants in the smoke that is produced. Inhaling these smoke toxicants is the cause of most smoking-related diseases.