Tobacco Menthol flavors can be obtained from tobacco with a simple gimmick for a long time – Stores are reluctant to intervene in the craze sold in the bakery

Consumer may be used to bake blueberry-menthol cheesecakes for a long time to come. So far, the tightened tobacco law is not visible on the dry product shelves of large grocery chains.

The tobacco law, which was tightened in early May, seeks to ban taste cards sold in store bakeries, which many use to flavor tobacco – for a purpose different from the uses described in the card’s product label.

In Finland, cards are sold for seasoning dry goods, but the taste of the cards is deceptively reminiscent of the smoking cans that were banned a few years ago. The S Group’s and Kesko’s selections include cards flavored with menthol, blueberry menthol and lime menthol.

For now Neither Kesko nor the S Group has withdrawn taste cards from sales, but the chains say they are still assessing the effects of the tightening of the Tobacco Act on the sale of taste cards. There is an ongoing transition period to the next May Day, during which flavor products already in stores and warehouses may still be sold.

“Changes are coming up in a year’s time at the latest, but that doesn’t rule out that changes could come sooner,” says SOK’s Communications Manager. Juho Kahilainen.

The journey of taste cards to store shelves began a few years ago around the overall reform of the 2016 Tobacco Act.

At that time, the characteristic odors and flavors of cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco and e-cigarette liquids were banned. For example, capsule cigarettes containing menthol or blackcurrant flavors, also called flavored or snack tobacco, were feared to attract young people to smoke.

Kahilainen says that there have been taste cards in the S Group’s selections at least since 2018.

Kahila says that the popularity of taste cards in the S Group’s stores increased in 2020, after which sales figures leveled off again. Kahila cannot name an unequivocal reason for the increase in popularity.

One reason can be found in a smoker who had his own special transition period for menthol-flavored tobacco. Its sale was only banned in 2020, when other flavored tobacco was banned years earlier.

Kesko’s Purchasing and Sales Director Aki Erkkilä says that sales of taste cards in K-stores peaked in July 2020. However, taste cards did not enter K-stores’ selections until the beginning of 2020. Since then, sales figures have been relatively steady, albeit subdued.

Read more: Menthol smoking is now a thing of the past – the ban is already being circumvented with “taste cards”

May at the beginning, two doctors suggested in an HS opinion that stores could voluntarily stop selling taste cards to minors now. According to doctors, the taste cards have been able to circumvent the ban on flavored tobacco, which has already come into force, and they have helped young people to try cigarettes with different tastes and smells.

Read more: Taste cards could be removed from sale even immediately

Neither the S Group nor Kesko are enthusiastic about the idea.

“Seasoning products are generally not subject to age limits. There is already a clear age limit for smoking. I don’t see that with these [maustamisen tuotteilla] there should be clear separate age limit control, ”says Kesko’s Erkkilä.

SOK’s Kahilainen says that some cooperatives have set up experimental sales restrictions on energy drinks, for example. The S Group does not have a uniform nationwide age limit for energy drinks, and he does not see such as very likely for taste cards.

“We have products for sale in the bakery department. There is no mention in the instructions that they should be used for anything other than baking. The use of taste cards to flavor tobacco products is an abuse, ”says Kahilainen.

Also In K-stores, taste cards are mainly placed in baking departments. Does Erkkilä believe that consumers use taste cards precisely for baking purposes?

“We don’t have research on how people use these,” he replies.

Erkkilä says that he considers it good that the new law has entered into force. It still does not cause immediate changes.

“It is clearly assessed and reviewed how many of these we have, how many of these are on the market and how we will be treated in the future,” says Erkkilä.