Los weights

[Tony]

I've noticed that pretty much all the web sites advertise the new 45g los snus by many of the makers with the exception of buysnus.com. Do they have a secret stash of snus or is it just a mistake?

[krugerfred]

Swedish Match and other producers have changed the contect because of the new tax increase on Snus. In order to keep price down they changed from 50g cans to the smaller 45g can. My guess is that buysnus forgot to change this information on their site.

[Zero]

I wonder what the laws on labeling accuracy are in Sweden. I suspect there's probably something like a 10% margin where the advertised/labeled weight of the product must be within 10% of what is actually inside.

I mean, consider the expense that Swedish Match would have to incur to change their entire process to fit new sizes of tins into their production line. Now, if they were previously selling 50g of tobacco in a tin labeled "50g", then selling 50g of tobacco in a tin labeled "45g" is probably within the accepted limits of the law - that is to say that nobody would be able to prosecute them for mislabeling anything if they didn't change a damned thing except for the fact that the tin now claims to contain 45g of tobacco rather than 50g.

It would, however, reduce the tax burden on the final sale - it would be interesting to actually weigh what's in these "new" tins and to see if the dimensions of the tin have changed at all, or whether they've just put a new sticker on the outside to reduce the amount of tax which needs to be paid :idea:

[Smarvy]

I doubt they would change the tins at all, I think they would just set the packing machines to dispense a slightly smaller amount of snus into each tin. It would be a not inconsiderable cost to have to throw out all their unused 50g tins and replace them with brand new 45g tins. They probably get labeled at the same time that they are filled, and printing new labels wouldn't cost nearly as much as manufacturing new, slightly smaller tins. You do raise an interesting question Zero, I have an analytical balance here at work, I will take some measurements next time I get an order that contains the new 45g size and compare it to some of my old 50g tins.

[TBonehawk]

LD loose tins have been 45g for some time, although I'm not sure why. In all honesty, I don't notice the 'missing' 5g as compared to the 50g tins, so I am curious as to the results of Smarvy's experiment. Sure, when you're ordering, that 5g is a big psychological factor - especially it you're ordering a roll because those missing 5g over 10 tins add up to an extra tin.

[Smarvy]

A caveat: I'm not planning on placing another order for a few weeks, and all of my tins now are the old 50g size (the Swedish Match ones anyway). I won't be weighing any snus for a while, although I do have an LD I could weigh now. If anyone wants to send me a 45g tin to test, I would be happy to receive it... all in the interest of science, of course :wink:

The other thought I had is moisture content; you could easily have an old tin that is a little dried out that weighs 5-10 grams less than a fresh tin of the same brand and weight. I'm not sure how we can correct for this factor, except by assuming that two unopened tins contain the same moisture content regardless of their "best-by" date