Zyns, Vapes and the Very Weird Market for New Nicotine Products

John Coogan (0:03)

Bloomberg Audio Studios.

Tracy Alloway (0:05)

Podcasts, radio, news.

Joe Weisenthal (0:21)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:26)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:27)

Tracy, have you tried a Zyn yet?

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

No, I've resisted. Multiple people, including you, have offered me Zyns before, and I have so far resisted the temptation. But I don't know how long I'm gonna be able to hold out.

Joe Weisenthal (0:44)

For those who don't, I guess there's some, there might be some people who don't know what a Zyn is, actually, it occurs to me. It's a little pouch that people put under their lip on their gum, and it's filled with tobacco-free nicotine salt, so it's sort of a smoking alternative, or even a vaping alternative. And so people who want nicotine can get it that way. But there's also this big culture of it, like Zyn memes are everywhere now.

Tracy Alloway (1:11)

Yes, and there have been times where it's been really hard to find them, right?

So first of all, they're made by Philip Morris, is my understanding. But then secondly, sales have jumped like, I can't remember the exact time frame.

Joe Weisenthal (1:24)

Hundreds and hundreds of percent, yeah.

Tracy Alloway (1:26)

And so there have been shortages of this product. And if you go online on certain subreddits and places like that, you can see people actively trying to find where they can get Zyns. There's also a lot of other nicotine delivery products nowadays too. There's obviously the Vapes and Elf bars. I had a, this is a slight aside, I had a green tea flavored vape type thing recently.

Joe Weisenthal (1:51)

Yeah, how was it?

Tracy Alloway (1:52)

It was great. And it made me feel so healthy. It's the only nicotine product that actually made me feel healthy.

Joe Weisenthal (2:00)

Do you remember, you know, speaking of nicotine, and I'm fascinated by nicotine, it always sort of goes in waves. I see cigarettes once again, I go to parties sometimes, a lot of people are smoking. Do you remember the episode we did with Larry Hamtel years ago? So he made an observation about the history of nicotine, that like there was some Russian czar in like the 1500s or something like that, who threatened to cut off the noses of anyone who consumed tobacco. And I guess that didn't work, but it really shows that, you know, you have these like crackdowns and people get really anti-nicotine consumption, but it really just doesn't go away. Like nicotine, it's Lindy, nicotine consumption.

Tracy Alloway (2:39)

I feel like we should just caveat this entire conversation, or at least I should, with, you know.

Joe Weisenthal (2:44)

Don't do drugs, folks.

Tracy Alloway (2:45)

I do not endorse nicotine consumption. However, everything in the world is relative and on a continuum. And I can say, you know, when I was in high school in Japan, I used to smoke clove cigarettes. Like there were days where I would smoke like a whole pack of cloves, which is just insane when I think about it now. And so certainly relative to a pack of cloves, I feel better about some of these new nicotine products. The one that I kind of like, and we're going to talk about it now, is the gum.

Joe Weisenthal (3:17)

Yes, right. Because Nicorette has existed for a while, but now we're seeing that more and more companies are doing it with different flavors and stuff like that. We are truly, again, nicotine is definitely having a moment right now.

Tracy Alloway (3:31)

Yes. And beyond personal preferences and consumption, it is just a really interesting business. So there are these new products being developed and sales of them have exploded in recent years. But then secondly, in the background, as with all nicotine and tobacco products, there's always the regulatory threat and what policymakers actually decide to do about these things and the health considerations and things like that. So it's just a really interesting industry to observe and talk about.

Joe Weisenthal (4:03)

Totally. And you mentioned the Zyn shortages, which are real, because I've gone into stores and they just like don't have any, et cetera. But there are all these other like Zyn competitors. There's Zemo, there's Zolt, there's Rogue, there's On.

Tracy Alloway (4:20)

Why do they all have Z in them?

Joe Weisenthal (4:23)

My guess would be, well, Zyn exists. And so let's come up with a name that's sort of... But anyway, we're going to be speaking with the CEO and co-founder of yet another one of these nicotine pouches because I want to actually understand how this business really works. And in fact, it's the company that makes the gum that you like.