Tobacco leaves, cut tobacco and paper are all extremely hygroscopic which means that they give up their moisture to the surrounding environment if the air is too dry. Dry air causes tobacco's properties to degrade resulting in shrinkage, weight loss, brittleness, flaking, splitting and tearing.
This causes tobacco to literally fall out of cigarettes, cigarette papers to misfeed on machines and cigar leaves to crack.
Maintaining the right level of ambient relative humidity prevents all these problems by ensuring that tobacco, paper and leaves retain moisture at the correct levels, so maintaining their quality and ensuring that production can proceed at full efficiency.
Recommended tobacco manufacturing humidity levels:
Primary production - 60-68%RH
Tobacco stores - 60-70%RH
Ripping rooms - 65%RH
- BAT
- ITC
- Imperial Tobacco
- Rothmans International
- Gallagher + Co Ltd
- Swedish Match
- World Duty Free
- Altadis
- Hunters & Frankau
- West Indian Tobacco
- Rizla
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