Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has invested heavily in its operations in Santa Cruz do Sul in order to increase its current tobacco processing capacity by 15 per cent by the end of 2023, reports Jornal do Comércio.

JTI will have invested BRL 80 million (USD 15 million) by the end of the year having increased its initial production capacity by 6 per cent over the past 12 months. The company aims to increase the production capacity by 15 per cent, translating to 50,000 tonnes per year, by the end of 2023.
According to Jornal do Comércio, the investment is part of a plan announced last year, which included investing BRL 123 million (USD 23 million) in JTI’s operations in Rio Grande do Sul by the end of 2023. “Our investment is not only aimed at increasing productivity, but mainly at increasing efficiency in production and the quality of the product that leaves here. It is a market demand, and we are in full evolution”, says JTI’s director of corporate affairs, Flávio Goulart.
Around 65 per cent of this year’s investment is dedicated to machinery and will see the production line updated and renewed using Italian technology. According to Goulart, the investment is directed at the automation of production and the application of artificial intelligence in this process. “Tobacco processing is a primary phase of production that ends up defining the quality of the final product. It is at the processing unit that the leaves are separated and processed for the compositions of each of our brands. Today, what we do in Santa Cruz do Sul is essential for JTI’s production”, he explains.
Up until 2021, all the tobacco that was purchased by the company – 50 per cent from Rio Grande do Sul and the rest from Santa Catarina and Paraná – was transported to Santa Cruz do Sul and had to be exported, still raw, to Antwerp, in Belgium, where the company processed the leaves, reports Jornal do Comércio. Only then, a small part of the product returned to Santa Cruz do Sul to the cigarette factory also operated by JTI in the city.
Currently, says the director, the company accounts for only 7 per cent of the domestic market and exports to Bolivia and some Caribbean countries. Therefore, most of the production currently processed in the State, therefore with higher added value, is exported to other JTI units around the world.