Smoking ban blamed for cigar factory closure

A CENTURY-OLD cigar factory responsible for the production of Hamlet cigars is to close with the loss of nearly 200 jobs, it has been confirmed.

Tobacco giant Gallaher blamed the smoking ban for the closure of its JR Freeman factory in Grangetown, Cardiff, which will close in 2009 with the loss of 184 jobs.

Workers’ union Unite said last night the news was “ a real blow” and said it would be meeting with the company on Monday to urge them to reconsider.

Gallaher says it has been experiencing declining sales in the UK for years and that this has been accelerated by the smoking ban.

The company sold 18.8 billion cigarettes in the UK in 2006, a 3.4% fall, but it declared global tobacco sales for that year worth £8.4bn, with profits of £565m, a 9.6% increase on 2005.

In April this year, Gallaher was acquired by Japan Tobacco, one of the world’s three biggest tobacco companies, for £7.5bn.

Japan Tobacco forecasts it will produce 548 billion cigarettes by the end of March 2008 and currently has a 7.5% share of the world’s tobacco market, up from 5.2% in 1998.

Its sales from tobacco, food and pharmaceuticals for the first quarter of the financial year ending in 2008 amounted to £5.2bn.

The JR Freeman factory has been producing Hamlet cigars, touted as “the mild cigar”, for 43 years. Though sales are continually declining, 2004 figures showed that around 470 million Hamlets were sold a year.

Its popular television adverts, featuring the slogan “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet” accompanied by Bach’s Air on the G String, starred the likes of comedy actors Gregor Fisher and Russ Abbott, and former cricketer Ian Botham lighting a cigar and forgetting their woes.

Gallaher said yesterday that since 1999, sales of its cigars had dropped by 50% and production will now move to Northern Ireland, where 95 jobs will be created, probably at the company’s factory at Ballymena, in County Antrim, which employs more than 900 workers.

A company spokesman said, “The decision is a result of a continuing decline in the UK cigar market, and has been accelerated by the smoking ban. It is a commercial decision [to move production to Northern Ireland].

“Obviously the proposal is regrettable and the changes do not reflect the performance of the workforce in Cardiff.

“Commercially it is not viable to keep the Cardiff factory open.”

Staff at the JR Freeman factory, which moved to Cardiff from London in 1908 and relocated to a new factory in nearby Penarth Road in the early 1960s, were briefed on the situation yesterday.

Joan Gallagher, secretary of Grangetown Community Concern, said whole generations worked at the factory, which had in the past employed busloads of workers travelling from the Valleys. “It is a great blow to the area, it has been a big employer for many years,” she said. “Whole families have worked there, particularly women.”

Martin Mansfield, Unite’s regional officer, said last night, “This is a real blow for the workforce who still believe this factory has a viable future in Cardiff.

“Unite will be working to save this factory and keep job losses to an absolute minimum.”

'Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet'

The adverts may have changed during the JR Freeman factory’s time, but the slogan – and the music – has remained the same. Here are some of the Hamlet cigar adverts since the 1960s, one of which has been voted among the greatest adverts of all time:

1966 – A music teacher with an awful student lights up and Bach’s Air on the G String begins

1974 – The Venus de Milo’s sculptor lights up after chopping off Aphrodite’s arm

1975 – A tennis fan in a neck brace gives up on trying to follow the action and lights up

1978 – A cowboy denied entrance to heaven at the Pearly Gates lights up accompanied by a harpist

1978 – A golfer lights up after repeatedly failing to get out of a bunker

1986 – Gregor Fisher gives up on having his photo taken in a booth after being repeatedly caught unawares. This is listed as the eighth greatest television advert of all time by Channel 4 in 2000

1990 – A footballer turns his back to a free kick to protect his nether regions, only for the shot to rebound off the crossbar

2002 – An advert showing three dwarves struggling to reach a urinal led to a reprimand from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), who branded it “offensive and vulgar” after receiving 19 complaints, including one from the Restricted Growth Association.