New cigarette brand launched

By Vasco Chaya

Cavendish Lloyd Zimbabwe has launched its Zark cigarette brand targeting at least a 10 percent market share and sales forecast of three million sticks per month.

The company director, Norbert Chimushamu, said he was confident that Zimbabweans will embrace the new product.

“Zark is a full-flavoured cigarette, relatively high in tar and nicotine to obtain a real tobacco taste, composing 100 percent flue-cured Virginia tobacco without any additives, flavourings or chemical components that needn’t be in a good tobacco anyway,” Chimushamu said at the corporate launch held in Mt Pleasant on Friday.

He added that the new cigarette brand brings an opportunity for Zimbabweans to enjoy premium grade leaf tobacco at an affordable price which traditionally has been reserved for the export market.

“Zimbabwe is not so big and there aren’t that many players that matter so there is room for something new,” he said.

“The fact that Zimbabwe was never marketed as a tobacco nation to the outside world has always surprised us. France has its wine and markets itself as a wine country for finished products, why can’t Zimbabwe do that for cigarettes?

It seems, nobody thought of it before,” he said.

Zark cigarettes are available in packs of 20.

“The product penetrated the local market only a month-and-a-half but the response is encouraging. Zark is a truly Zimbabwean cigarette, made by and for Zimbabweans, instead of us positioning it as an international lifestyle brand as is done by most of the other brands we are striving to satisfy local market first.”

Chimushamu said they are targeting smokers who can appreciate good tobacco.

“We are targeting smokers, who appreciate a full-flavour tobacco, appreciate their smoke. We will eventually come out with lighter and more lifestyle-oriented varieties. There will be a Zark for any type of smoker.” Daily News