Drum is a Dutch brand of fine-cut handrolling tobacco, or shag, introduced in 1952. It was originally produced and distributed by the Douwe Egberts corporation. Douwe Egberts was purchased by the Sara Lee Corporation, which sold Drum to Imperial Brands, the current British producer.NY Times: Sara Lee sells tobacco division for $ 1,1 billion, 8 April 1998. Visited 1 July 2012
Outside the US
Drum is worldwide the #1 brand for shag tobacco.Trouw (newspaper) Tobacco factory bought and closed (Dutch), 8 December 1998. Visited: 30 June 2012 Before Sara Lee sold their Drum and tobacco section to Imperial the main factories for Drum were Drachten and Joure. The factory in Drachten was closed directly after the move to Imperial in 1989 and IT decided to further integrate the production within Douwe Egberts / Van Nelle (DEVN) which also had production facilities in the nearby Joure (30 km) and Meppel (60 km). IT invested 22 million guilders (€10 million) in new machinery for the remaining locations. Drum Tobacco is also produced outside the Netherlands in several factories of the Imperial Tobacco group.
United Kingdom Before Douwe Egberts introduced Drum in the UK there was an active grey market and Drum had a large market-share: as the tobacco prices were once much higher in the UK than on the European mainland, there were many people who travelled to (mainly) Belgium or France by ferry to import alcohol and tobacco. Although this is still going on, the price differences from 10 years ago have decreased.Evilzone , visited 2 July 2012
However, rolling tobacco still, as of October 2023, remains around a third of the price in Belgium as it is in the UK, and smuggling continues. When Douwe Egberts was ready to introduce Drum they faced some legal problems, forcing them to change the brand name to Duma, and was struggling to get a foothold on the UK duty-paid market.Tobaccopapers website Drum advertising strategy, retrieved: 2 July 2012
Netherlands In the Netherlands, Drum is the #2 selling brand of shag-tobacco, just below Van Nelle, which is also a brand of Imperial Tobacco.VNK: Top 10 most sold shag brands 2010 , visited: 1 July 2010 Smoking shag tobacco used to be more popular in the Netherlands than smoking ready-made cigarettes. In 1989, the 'market share' of shag-tobacco was 53%, but decreased to 42% in 2010.VNK (Combined Dutch (shag)tobacco producers):Overview newsarticles (Dutch), visited 1 July 2012
The main reason for the popularity is the price. A typical cigarette contains less than 1 gram of tobacco. A pouch of 40-42.5 grams is about the same price as a box of 19-20 cigarettes, so the cost of a self-rolled cigarette is half the price of a ready-made cigarette. Many people also put much less tobacco in a self-rolled cigarette. The taxes on tobacco are mainly based on the weight of tobacco, so the margins for the producer are lower on shag than on ready-made cigarettes.VNK Website Price breakdown (excise, VAT & trade) , visited 1 July 2012
European Blends As the original terms "half-zwaar" (medium strong) and "mild" cannot be used anymore due to European rules the different blends are now referenced by their colour. Not all blends are available in each country.
Tobacco Select Original Bright Blue Gold Dark Kentucky ****** *****- **---- *----- Bright Virginia ****** *****- *****- ****-- Burley & Oriental ------ ------ ***--- ****--
References