Consumers choose price over branding in tobacco

Andrew Lansley may want to rethink his support of putting cigarettes in plain packs after The Grocer's annual Top Products survey revealed that price - far more than bright shiny packaging - determines purchasing decisions.

The overall tobacco category grew by 3.8% in value for the year to 2 October, helped by increases in both duty and VAT, but within that there was staggering growth for some of the lower-priced brands, while the most ­recognisable such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Regal all suffered ­significant losses.

Imperial Tobacco's budget John Player Special Blue variant experienced by far the strongest growth of any grocery product sold this year up a massive 173.1% to £209.4m.

Rival JTI also enjoyed massive success for its low price brand, Sterling, with King Size up 67.1% and Superkings up 37.9%.

In stark contrast, premium cigarette brands all lost sales Marlboro Gold was down 2.4%, Benson & Hedges Gold was down 4.3% and Regal was down 11.3%. Overall, 632 million fewer cigarettes were sold but this was more than made up for by a 19.5% increase in the sale of roll-your-own tobacco, which smashed through the £1bn barrier with total sales of £1.14bn.

The figures suggest that price is the key factor for smokers in the current economic climate and will cast further doubt over the need for government to ­introduce plain packaging.

"Making all tobacco products available in the same, easy-to-copy generic plain packaging would potentially lead to a significant increase in counterfeit product," said Imperial Tobacco head of marketing Steve Brock. "Governments need to ask themselves whether they want tobacco products to be sold by a responsible, legitimate business or by organised crime gangs who have no regard for any regulation."