Tobacco Business

[ 66 ] TOBACCO BUSINESS [ MAY / JUNE | 21 ] Branding was another important phase of NIIN’s product development. Just as with the product itself, Mulcahy wanted to bring a new type of branding and overall message to the nicotine pouch market with the release of NIIN. It was decided that the branding would focus on symbolic imagery—like the NIIN zero circle—and would be a play on words in terms of the product’s name, NIIN, which alludes to the tobacco-free nature of the nicotine in the product (none, nil, nada) and the company’s motto, “Nicotine innovated.” The clean and polished branding that featured dark and color contrasts would help capture the attention of consumers, and the overall branding would visually communicate to them that NIIN was ushering in a new era of nicotine pouch products that broke ties with tobacco. Going Tobacco-Free Having built a business around the idea of harm reduction and non-reliance on tobacco, Mulcahy knew that he wanted to create a nicotine pouch product that didn’t contain nicotine derived from tobacco. Other nicotine pouch products on the market have made the claim that their products are tobacco- free, yet their pouch’s nicotine comes from tobacco plants. “Some attempt to get around this is by saying that they have a purification process, but no amount of this will ever remove the constituent impurities found in their nicotine derived from the tobacco plant,” Mulcahy explains. For Mulcahy, NIIN was built on the idea of innovation and doing things differently. One of the product’s major innovations is its use of TFN (Tobacco Free Nicotine) made by Next Gen Labs. TFN is created entirely in a lab, meaning that NIIN pouches contain no tobacco-derived ingredients and are also free of the residual and constituent impurities found in tobacco and products containing tobacco-derived nicotine. Additionally, synthetic nicotine like TFN is not currently regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), so NIIN products are not subject to traditional nicotine taxes in a number of states. The use of synthetic nicotine was just part of how NIIN chose to be innovative with its product. On a molecular level, synthetic nicotine shares the same structure as nicotine that comes from an tobacco plant, but it has less of the residual and constituent impurities. These impurities have been linked to higher levels of risk, which was something that Mulcahy and the team at NIIN wanted to avoid within their products. NIIN was designed to offer consumers a high level of nicotine satisfaction with less risk. Mulcahy was also concerned about the tobacco-growing process and its impact on the environment. “It takes a lot of work and is a cumbersome process to grow, then to be processed and refined into liquid or dry nicotine,” he says. “This process now seems redundant and wasteful. TFN provides a purer solution.” NIIN uses a different manufacturing process than its competitors in the domestic market. Since other nicotine pouch products are dry portion pouches, consumers experience little in terms of flavor and nicotine release when they initially place the pouch in their mouth. These pouches require saliva activation to moisten the pouch and for consumers to get the full effect of the product. NIIN pouches, however, are pre-moistened and primed for the user to get immediate flavor and nicotine uptake as soon as the pouch is inserted inside their lip. NIIN’s primed pouches also feature a soft, resilient, micro-perforated paper overwrap, resulting in a comfortable usability experience for the consumer and a relatively even release and absorption of nicotine and flavor. “I believe the innovations NIIN is bringing to the market will help to make us competitive in the nicotine pouch space,” says Mulcahy. “And while the product is important, we fully understand it’s not the only thing that matters. To that end, we have put together a very professional package of point-of-purchase collateral for our retailers, including an acrylic display tower, window clings, tent cards and shelf talkers.” Navigating Regulations Having dealt with the onslaught of regulations and scrutiny in the vapor category, Mulcahy and his team have spent some time pondering the legislative and regulatory future of the nicotine pouch category. In terms of regulations, any product derived from tobacco must go through the same premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) process before it can legally be sold and marketed in the U.S. While e-cigarettes and vapor products have both been subject to increased scrutiny and regulations over the past few years, nicotine pouches have been somewhat spared from regulations and legal roadblocks. Even though NIIN is being billed as being completely tobacco-free, the company is not seeking a modified-risk order from the FDA for a few key reasons. “This is something we spent a good deal of time discussing with our legal counsel,” says Mulcahy. “First, NIIN is not a tobacco product; it is a nicotine product. While that might sound like a semantics argument, it’s actually very significant when it comes to the regulatory requirements. A lawyer made a great analogy for us. He asked us, ‘Would you go to the DMV to get license plates for your horse?’ It’s funny but also applicable. The nicotine in other nicotine pouch brands is all derived from the tobacco plant, so they I believe the innovations NIIN is bringing to the market will help to make us competitive in the nicotine pouch space. And while the product is important, we fully understand it’s not the only thing that matters. — Patrick Mulcahy