TAAT® Fulfills Initial Purchase Orders from 23 Southern California Franchises of a Global Convenience Chain
LAS VEGAS and VANCOUVER, APRIL 22, 2022 - TAAT® GLOBAL ALTERNATIVES INC. (CSE: TAAT) (OTCQX: TOBAF) (FRANKFURT: 2TP) (the “Company” or “TAAT®”) is pleased to announce that it has fulfilled purchase orders for an initial supply of TAAT® Original, Smooth, and Menthol (along with countertop and point-of-sale promotional materials) for 23 franchised convenience stores that are part of a global convenience chain with over 70,000 stores worldwide and over 9,300 stores in the United States. These purchase order shipments arrived at the stores on April 21, 2022. The 23 stores are located in Southern California where the Company has numerous existing retailers; thus allowing for TAAT® to be launched in these new stores as an “established” brand locally within the tobacco category, providing the ability to leverage the product’s current market footprint as an alternative to tobacco cigarettes. As announced in a press release dated January 21, 2022, the Company already has a presence in other national chain retailers with placements in several gas station chains in the United States, through which it is currently undertaking an in-store activation strategy to facilitate efficient and scalable expansions within a given chain.
These purchase orders were facilitated through the Company’s relationship with a franchise owners’ association based in Southern California (“FOA”) during a trade show held by the FOA in April 2022. The FOA could prove instrumental to the Company’s ability to place TAAT® products throughout Southern California, and potentially to other franchisees in the convenience chain in other geographies. Resulting from positive reception of TAAT® at the April 2022 trade show held by the FOA, the Company has been invited to exhibit at additional franchise owner association events scheduled to be held in Northern California and Chicago. The “Chicagoland” metropolitan area is a key market for the Company, as unique combinations of city, county, and state taxes on tobacco cigarettes result in the highest combined cigarette taxes in the United States amounting to USD $7.16 per pack in Chicago, representing taxes alone in addition to the actual retail price and the federal per-pack excise tax1.
Although the Company initially sought to place TAAT® in independent retail stores (e.g., convenience, gas stations, tobacconists) to build an early-stage market position, it has started to pursue independently-owned franchises of chain stores as TAAT® points of sale to observe how the products perform in an inherently “corporate” environment (i.e., in comparison to non-chain retail settings). This strategy has enabled TAAT® to overcome barriers to becoming a network-wide supplier to retail chains, which expands the Company's opportunities for building a market presence in the tobacco industry in the near-term.
The TAAT® countertop display (shown above) has proven to be a very effective method of merchandising TAAT® products in retail stores. Aside from being efficient for onboarding purposes (i.e., retailers are not required to immediately reconfigure their cigarette displays to begin carrying TAAT®), the countertop displays convey key information to adult smokers who are considering purchasing TAAT® for the first time. The Company has delivered countertop displays to 29 franchises of a global convenience chain located in Southern California, a region in which TAAT® already has an established presence.
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TAAT® Chief Executive Officer Setti Coscarella commented, “We are excited to have this opportunity to enter stores in a prestigious global convenience chain, with the help of the FOA and the support of its members who have placed initial purchase orders. The tobacco category is extraordinarily difficult to penetrate when it comes to gaining distribution; not just because of the complex nuances of aligning your availability with smokers’ shopping routines, but also because tobacco companies everywhere do everything they can to impede new entrants to the market. Given how much of a challenge it is to enter chains through their corporate headquarters based on factors such as this, we’ve taken a different approach to getting into their stores by working directly with individual franchisees, which has already landed TAAT® in several national U.S. gas station chains. Based on our performance in those stores we are now scaling things up by working with franchise owner associations, who provide us a warm introduction to the decision-makers for each store who can choose to carry TAAT® once they are introduced to the product. It’s a compelling proposition for franchise owners, because the profit margins they earn on TAAT® are much higher than what they can earn selling tobacco cigarettes at mandated pricing. We are thrilled to have landed these initial TAAT® purchase orders resulting from just five hours at an FOA trade show, and we look forward to hopefully expanding our presence within the ecosystem of franchisees in the global convenience chain, particularly as we start to attend additional events for their franchise owners.”
Sources
1 - https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0267.pdf
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,
TAAT® GLOBAL ALTERNATIVES INC.
“Setti Coscarella”
Setti Coscarella, CEO and Director
For further information, please contact:
TAAT® Investor Relations
1-833-TAAT-USA (1-833-822-8872)
THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE (“CSE”) HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE, NOR HAS OR DOES THE CSE’S REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER.
About TAAT® Global Alternatives Inc.
The Company has developed TAAT®, which is a tobacco-free and nicotine-free alternative to traditional cigarettes offered in "Original", "Smooth", and "Menthol" varieties. TAAT®'s base material is Beyond Tobacco™, a proprietary blend which undergoes a patent-pending refinement technique causing its scent and taste to resemble tobacco. Under executive leadership with "Big Tobacco" pedigree, TAAT® was launched first in the United States in Q4 2020 as the Company seeks to position itself in the $812 billion1 global tobacco industry.
For more information, please visit http://taatglobal.com.
References
1 Statista: Consumer Markets - Tobacco Products
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