54
TOBACCO BUSINESS
JULY/AUGUST 2013
T
he story behind Tobacco Outlet
Products and the origin of the Smoke Odor
Exterminator product line is entrepreneurship
at its purest. It begins with the brainstorm of
tobacco industry veteran Don Bores, one of
the original founders of this magazine.
“I knew we had a vehicle to communicate
with a growing class of trade—the tobacco
outlet—so I looked for products that were
not necessarily tobacco products, but were
appropriate for the channel,” explains Bores.
Odor-eliminating candles seemed a natural
fit—but how to create and manufacture such
a specialty product?
Enter Paul Hoge, a candlemaker from
southern Florida who had settled in North
Carolina, not far from the headquarters
of
Tobacco Business
. Hoge specialized in
decorative candles, a vestige of the candle
business he started in Florida by picking up
seashells and embedding them in pillars and
tapers. Nevertheless, when Bores approached
Hoge with a challenge—develop a candle that
would effectively eliminate cigarette odor—he
was intrigued.
“It was completely different, but I was used
to the process of developing products,” recalls
Hoge. “Still, it took a while to get it right.”
After tinkering with various formulas and
testing various enzymes, Hoge was finally
satisfied enough to run his creation, dubbed
the “SmokeOdor Exterminator Candle,”past
By Jennifer Gelfand
Make Scents
The creation
of an effective smoke
odor-eliminating
candle evolved into
a full line of smoke
odor solutions for
this entrepreneurial
company.
TOP team members Paul Hoge, Samantha Miller,
Julia Beachum, Erik Saunders
Candles being made
at TOP’s factory
