“I strongly believe that to be successful in a leadership position you need to start from the bottom and learn the ins and outs of your business,” says Jose. “This helps you to always remember where you began and how far you have made it. For me, this experience has allowed me to strengthen my leadership skills.”
Jose calls on his team’s recommendations and thoughts on the company’s various projects. As a leader in the company, he likes the team to know how their contributions and opinions on all of the goings-on within the company are not only needed but valued. When it comes to making the final decisions, Jose reveals that he settles on the ones that are deemed the most reasonable for the company’s vendors, customers, employees and the company as a whole.
Sustainable Practices
Jose and his brother, Nestor Plasencia Jr., work every day to carry on their family’s traditions through their passion and hard work. They also acknowledge that the world is changing and that the company must adapt to the new market trends in order to successfully continue in the tobacco industry. One way the company is ensuring its successful future is by turning its attention to sustainability. Through the years, the Plasencias have learned that by protecting the soil its tobacco is grown in as well as the company’s water resources, it is able to improve the quality of tobacco that it plants and, consequently, the quality of its cigars.
“We want to ensure that the future Plasencia generations have rich soils that will enable them to continue working in this beautiful industry and have the ability to continue producing high-quality cigars,” Jose explains.
One of the company’s cigars, the Reserva Original, is marketed as the world’s only handmade organic cigar. Jose believes that cigar consumers are drawn to organic products and acknowledges that this is one of the changes the company is noticing in the industry and among its customers. With people becoming more environmentally conscious, there’s a growing demand for companies to become more sustainable and to offer products that are organic. Plasencia has made several investments to achieve sustainability. One of those has been to increase the production of vermicompost, a resource that is used as an organic fertilizer and in turn improves the organic materials in soil. This allows the soil to become richer in nutrients, which will yield more tobacco for years to come.
The company has also invested in fertigation systems. These allow for fertilization and irrigation to take place at the same time. This system cuts the amount of water usage in half and increases the yield of production by 25 percent.
“Our employees are very grateful that we are incorporating these new efforts. When we take good care of our environment, we also take good care of them, something that has and always will be a top priority,” says Jose.
Plasencia’s sustainability efforts have allowed for richer soils as well as richer tobacco crops. By incorporating these different conservation techniques, the Plasencias have seen their natural resources improve and the quality of the company’s tobaccos enhanced. All of these efforts lead to the ultimate payoff for retailers and consumers—high-quality cigars that will not only delight cigar aficionados but also a new generation of smokers. Jose has one final insight that other tobacco businesses can benefit from: It is amazing what the earth can give when you take good care of it.
This story first appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Tobacco Business magazine. Members of the tobacco industry are eligible for a complimentary subscription to our magazine. Click here for details.
– Story by Antoine Reid, an editor and digital content director for Tobacco Business Magazine. You can follow him on Instagram @editor.reid.
