Philip Morris International will stop direct buying from contract growers next April and source its US tobacco needs from Alliance One International and Universal Corp, the company said.

“Moving to a new system for leaf purchasing in the U.S. will help us achieve important supply chain efficiencies while remaining a major purchaser of U.S. grown tobacco,” said Nicolas Denis, PMI vice president of leaf. About 35 PMI employees based in Richmond, Virginia, will be “impacted”.
Both US leaf merchants currently supply tobacco to PMI.