General, Forged Increase Prices

General Cigar Co. and Forged Cigar Co.—both part of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG)—will increase prices on April 3, 2023.

It’s unclear how much prices are going up on average—the company does not typically comment to media about price increases—but the changes will affect the vast majority of the cigars sold by the two companies.

A handful of lines, primarily new lines, will not increase in price. They are:

• CAO BX3
• Chillin’ Moose Bull Moose
• Chillin’ Moose Shady Moose
• FLVR
• Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure Seleccion
• Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur Dark Knight
• La Gloria Cubana Serie S

In addition, specific sizes of some lines will not increase in price, but, for example, the changes appear to affect roughly 85 percent of the SKUs sold by Forged.

General Cigar Co.’s portfolio includes CAO, Cohiba, Don Tomás, Hoyo de Monterrey, Macanudo, Punch, Royal Agio, Sancho Panza and Humi-Care.

Forged’s portfolio includes Bolivar, Chillin’ Moose, Diesel, El Rey del Mundo, El Rico Habano, La Gloria Cubana, Los Stratos, Partagas and Room101.

For brands like Bolivar, Cohiba, El Rey del Mundo, Hoyo de Monterrey, La Gloria Cubana, Partagas Punch and Sancho Panza, General/Forged sell the non-Cuban versions in the U.S. while Habanos S.A. sells the Cuban versions in markets outside of the U.S.

In February, STG purchased Alec Bradley and will move Alec Bradley products into the Forged portfolio by June. Today’s announcement does not mention Alec Bradley prices though Alec Bradley implemented its own price increase prior to the sale to STG.

The move appears to have caught retailers off guard. Most cigar companies will typically give retailers a window of at least a couple of weeks to place orders before the new prices take effect. In this case, retailers were informed of the price increases via email at 1 p.m. EST and were told that the old prices would be honored until 4:30 p.m. EST.

halfwheel contacted multiple retailers, who all said they were not informed of the price increases prior to the email. Some of these retailers seemed particularly perturbed because the email arrived after the annual Tobacconists’ Association of America (TAA) Meeting & Convention, which took place this week in the Dominican Republic. During the event, many cigar companies offer the 80 or so retailers that are TAA members additional discounts, which produces larger orders from retailers in attendance.

Furthermore, General/Forged made it clear that it would not let retailers place larger orders today to take advantage of the old prices. The email, which was sent from Régis Broersma—president and svp of North American Branded and Rest of the World Branded for STG—included the following:

All orders received by 4:30 pm EST today which call for immediate shipment and do not exceed a normal two-week supply, will be processed, and invoiced at current prices. General Cigar Company and Forged Cigar Company reserves the right to reduce order quantities without notification if they exceed the normal two-week supply.

It is widely expected that most cigar companies will be increasing prices in or around early 2023, most of which are likely to be announced in the first quarter of the year as that is when most companies traditionally make these announcements. Reasons for these increases include increased costs for tobacco and packaging, increased competition for labor, general inflation, and mirroring competitors’ price adjustments.

The following chart looks at what companies have announced price increases or no price increases for 2023.

Company	Price Increase?
AJ Fernandez	No
Alec Bradley	Yes
All Saints Cigars	Yes
Battleground	No
Bellatto Premium Cigars	Yes
Bocock Brothers	Yes
Caldwell	Yes
CLE	Yes
Crowned Heads	Yes
Crux	Yes
D'Crossier	No
Davidoff	Yes
Drew Estate	Yes
Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust	Yes
E.P. Carrillo	Yes
Epic	No
Espinosa Premium Cigars	Yes
Esteban Carreras	No
Fable	No
Favilli	No
Ferio Tego	No
Forged Cigar Co.	Yes
Foundation Cigar Co.	No
Fuerte y Libre	Yes
Garo	No
General Cigar Co.	Yes
Gran Habano	No
Habanos S.A.	Yes
Howard G Cigars	No
Iconic Leaf	Yes
Illusione	No
J.C. Newman	Yes
Karen Berger	No
La Flor Dominicana	No
La Palina	Yes
La Sirena	No
Lost&Found	Yes
Lotus/Vertigo	No
Luciano Cigars	No
Maya Selva Cigars	Yes
Miami Cigar & Co.	No
My Father Cigars	No
Oscar Valladares Tobacco & Co.	Yes
Oveja Negra Brands	No
Paul Garmirian	Yes
PDR Cigars	No
Perdomo	Yes
Platinum Nova	No
Plasencia Cigars	Yes
Powstanie	Yes
Quality Importers Trading Co.	No
Rocky Patel	Yes
Rojas Cigars	Yes
Sinistro Cigars	Yes
Southern Draw	No
Vintage Rock-A-Feller	No