Tobacco Business

[ T O B A C C O B U S I N E S S . C O M ] TOBACCO BUSINESS [ 73 ] Karen Berger has spent recent years building on what her husband started. Hers is more than a business story; it’s a love story. All that she’s worked on over the years, all that she’s accomplished, was done not only in the name of her husband but out of a respect and love for tobacco and cigars. Continuing a Legacy Learning the ins and outs of the tobacco business was a process but one Berger was determined to master. Working in the cigar factory was not as easy as many people believe it to be. Rolling cigars was particularly challenging, especially when working with wrapper, which is delicate and easily damaged. For Berger, experience was the best teacher, and from the beginning she was determined to learn as much as she could about the products she was helping to make. “When you are working and doing what you love to do, and when you have interest in the thing that you are doing, it’s amazing,” she says. “Working in the factory and learning all of the different factory and production processes was not easy. Every operation has some difficult parts. Now I am more involved in the factory, blending my cigars. It’s the part of the process that I love a lot. Having the capacity to create something by myself that I can bring to all of my cigar family is important to me.” Learning how to blend cigars was important to Berger because part of her husband’s legacy was his cigar brand that she wanted to be able to continue. One thing she learned about blending was that when creating a new blend, knowing what cigar smokers were looking for or wanted from a cigar was key to the blend’s overall success. Also, she knew that each blend had to bring or introduce something new to the brand. “When I intend to create a new blend, the idea is to make something different that I don’t have on the market right now,” she explains. “Also, something different that people are asking for.” At the time of her husband’s passing, Don Kiki Cigars consisted of four blends but has since expanded with two additional blends that his wife introduced in recent years. At the urging of her peers in the industry, Berger has also created her own cigar line, K by Karen Berger. As with everything that she does, she wanted to make sure that even her own brand had ties to her husband. While the “K” stands for Karen, it also refers to her husband, Kiki. The tobacco used in the K by Karen blends come from her tobacco farm in Nicaragua, and the cigars are presented in her favorite format, a box press. K by Karen Berger is a Nicaraguan puro produced at her factory, Tabacalera Estelí, located in Estelí, Nicaragua. There are two different versions of the cigar: one with a habano wrapper and the other that features a maduro wrapper. The blends were introduced in 2016, and Berger used all of the knowledge she learned about cigarmaking from her husband to bring her own cigar to the market. Breaking Stereotypes Blending and cigarmaking are just part of Berger’s story. A true businesswoman, Berger oversees a multi-tiered tobacco business that includes a tobacco growing operation, a cigar factory and also a retail store located in Daytona Beach, Florida. Before his death, her husband was the face of the company, but she has since taken on the role and all of the responsibilities. One of the most difficult parts of her business was the tobacco growing, something that initially made her very nervous and came with a lot of pressure. Growing tobacco was an economic responsibility like none she had encountered before. The first crop she grewwas funded with her ownmoney and required a bit of a sacrifice. The tobacco that was being grown at that time wasn’t being used in any blends she was producing for her own company, meaning she would have to find buyers for the crop. Luckily, that crop turned out well, and she did eventually find buyers for that tobacco in the Dominican Republic, which allowed her to recoup some of the money she had initially invested in the crop. Learning to manage the crop and keep up with the liabilities associated with owning a cigar factory were obstacles Berger overcame by relying on the team around her and by asking for advice. “I’d say that I am a very humble person. I don’t know everything, so I like to learn every day,” she says. “In this industry, we have a lot of diversity, knowledge and different techniques, so I am always open to learning something new,” she says. Another area of the tobacco business that Berger has committed herself to learning is retail. At her store, Don Kiki Cigars Superstore, which is located in Daytona Beach, Berger gets firsthand experience with cigar consumers and is able to see what they are buying and what interests them. Half of the cigars stocked at her store are what she considers to be boutique, something that is important to her as an owner of a smaller cigar brand herself. Much like her husband, she wants to use her business and influence to help others and to give them opportunities. Due to its unique collection of cigar products, its lounge and view of the ocean, Don Kiki Cigars Superstore has become a destination for many cigar enthusiasts. Two aspects of the business Berger especially loves are the collaborations and close relationships she has forged with other brand owners and cigar manufacturers. She speaks fondly of the Perdomo and Fuente families and also counts Gaby Kafie among her biggest supporters. Jonathan Drew, founder of Drew Estate, is another friend within the industry that she speaks highly of. Berger looks toward other women in the industry for inspiration, naming both Liana Fuente and Cynthia Fuente as examples she tries to follow and aspire to. Janine Perdomo, last year’s Tobacco Businesswoman of the Year, is someone that Berger describes as “amazing” and someone she respects due to her dedication and support of her own husband’s brand and business.