british american tobacco australia - Roll-your-own

Rolling your own has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years

Roll-your-own tobacco, sometimes referred to as hand-rolling tobacco or fine cut, is almost certainly the oldest form of smoking, pre-dating the use of the earliest pipes.

Many tobacco manufacturers shifted towards the production of cigarettes as they grew in popularity, and roll-your-own tobacco became the choice of only the most cost-conscious smokers, or people who actually enjoyed the ritual of making their own cigarettes.

In some countries manufactured cigarettes took over the market completely, but in the Netherlands and Norway almost half of smokers continue to favour hand-rolled cigarettes to this day. Roll-your-own commands a smaller but significant market in other countries too, such as Belgium, Germany, France, New Zealand and the UK.

In recent years the roll-your-own market has started to grow again elsewhere. Much of this growth is based on value for money and the fact that the ritual of rolling your own has become simpler with the arrival of easy to use cigarette rolling machines.

Many varieties of tobacco, including Burley, Virginia, sun-cured and fire-cured, are used to produce the blends in British American Tobacco’s hand-rolling and pipe tobaccos.

British American Tobacco Australia's factory, Virginia Park manufactures roll-your-own tobacco in pouch form for Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and New Caledonia. Pouches are packed by weights of 25g, 30g, 40g and 50g. Production also occurs for duty free markets, which requires bundles of five pouches to be packed into display boxes.

Virginia Park produces 1,400 tonnes of roll-your-own tobacco a year across 62 different brand variants.

For more information on the manufacturing process, see Manufacturing .