Favorable Prospects for the Continental Tobacco Group

The Continental Tobacco Group is starting this year's tobacco harvest season with a positive outlook and expects an above-average harvest, the group told MTI on Thursday.

According to the information, the group's tobacco cultivation member Dofer Tobacco Fermenting Ltd. has contracted for 1,005 hectares of tobacco cultivation, 8% more than last year.

The planting of seedlings, which started at the beginning of March, and the subsequent nursery and care work have been successfully completed. Temperatures and rainfall were ideal for plant development after the initial colder period.

Csaba Füzi, CEO of Continental Tobacco Plc, the owner of the tobacco factory in Sátoraljaújhely, said in the statement that everything is in place for this year's harvest to exceed last year's results. The mood among producers is clearly positive, supported not only by the current development of the plantations but also by market conditions such as the institution of compulsory purchase and the 50% increase in the basic purchase price at the beginning of the year, he added.

The Continental Tobacco Group is an independent, Hungarian family-owned private company, founded in 1996 in Hódmezővásárhely, currently employing around 700 people. The group's products are known nationwide on the Hungarian market and are available in more than 30 countries as a result of its export activities.

The group currently includes Dofer Tobacco Fermenting Ltd. in Szolnok, where the tobacco leaf processing process is carried out in addition to the production of tobacco, and the tobacco factory in Sátoraljaújhely, which is more than 130 years old. The group also has subsidiaries in Italy, Germany, Romania and Slovakia.

According to publicly available data, Continental Tobacco Plc achieved net sales of HUF 63.7 billion last year, up 12.96% year-on-year, and its profit after tax in 2022 was HUF 8.2 billion, up 29.5% year-on-year.