Selecting the best varieties of tobacco and skilfully blending them is not always enough to obtain a blend that can be appreciated by smokers around the world.  Creating a blend requires a complex production process and it entails several processing stages which also involve the use of specific ingredients, with the aim of exalting the aromatic qualities in tobacco or conferring a distinctive aroma to the tobacco. 

The ingredients are added during two stages of the production: casing and flavouring. Not all blends are subject to both processes; many only need casing, while the blends with no additives do not contain any additional ingredients. 

The recipes: precious secrets

Every product has its recipe. The recipe tells us which tobacco to use and which ingredients to add, and represents one of the most precious secrets we have proudly kept since our start in 1926.

There are, of course, some people who know the recipes. One of them is Ane Grethe Madsen, a Mac Baren employee since 2009, responsible for the casing process. 

Before joining Mac Baren, Ane Grethe worked in a cheese factory for several years; this is why she was chosen to work for us, as the gestures and movements required are similar in both jobs, despite the fact that the jobs are very different from one another. 

Ane Grethe, who had never been a smoker, was very surprised to learn that she could perform her task despite not knowing about tobacco. As a matter of fact, in order to work for Mac Baren, you don’t necessarily have to be a smoker – a large number of employees aren’t. 

What surprised Ane the most was the complexity of the tobacco-making process and the meticulousness with which ingredients are added during the casing and flavouring processes.

As tobacco is a plant which grows differently every year, it is always important to adapt the recipes in order to obtain the same flavours as the previous years and this makes the job even more complex.

Quality ingredients

Often, the common idea is that ingredients that are added to tobacco are all chemically produced and contain few natural ingredients. In actual fact, in our pantry, we store a wide selection of high-quality, food grade ingredients which are used both during the casing stage and the flavouring process. 

It would be a waste to spoil skilfully selected tobacco with low quality ingredients. Smokers who purchase our blends all over the world would be the first to notice and to stop purchasing Mac Baren. And we sure don’t want this to happen.