Drum is a Dutch

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

of fine-cut handrolling

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, or

shag Shag, or Shagged, or Shagger, or Shagging, or Shags may refer to: Animals * Shag or cormorant, a bird family ** European shag, a specific species of the shag or cormorant family ** Great cormorant another species of the family People Pseudonym ...

, introduced in 1952. It was originally produced and distributed by the

Douwe Egberts Douwe Egberts is a Dutch brand of coffee which is majority-owned by JDE Peet's. It was founded in Joure, Netherlands, by Egbert Douwes in 1753 as De Witte Os ("The White Ox"), a general grocery shop. The company later started dealing specifically ...

corporation. Douwe Egberts was purchased by the

Sara Lee Corporation The Sara Lee Corporation was an American consumer-goods company based in Downers Grove, Illinois. It had operations in more than 40 countries and sold its products in over 180 countries. Its international operations were headquartered in Utrecht ...

, which sold Drum to

Imperial Brands Imperial Brands plc (formerly Imperial Tobacco Group plc), is a British multinational tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, England. It is the world's fourth-largest international cigarette company measured by market share after Philip Mor ...

, the current British producer.

Outside the US

Drum is worldwide the #1 brand for shag tobacco.Trouw (newspaper
Tobacco factory bought and closed
(Dutch), 8 December 1998. Visited: 30 June 2012 Before Sara Lee sold their Drum and Van Nelle tobacco section to Imperial the main factories for Drum were

Drachten Drachten () is a town in the northern Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Smallingerland, Friesland. It had a population of around 45,186 in January 2017 and is the second largest town in the province of Friesland. History Begin ...

and

Joure Joure (; West Frisian language, West Frisian: ''De Jouwer'') is a town in the north of the Netherlands. It is the administrative center of De Fryske Marren, Friesland. With 13,090 inhabitants, it is also the most populous town in the municipality. ...

. The factory in Drachten was closed directly after the move to Imperial in 1989 and IT decided to further integrate the production within ''Douwe Egberts / Van Nelle'' (DEVN) which also had production facilities in the nearby Joure (30 km) and Meppel (60 km). IT invested 22 million guilders (€10 million) in new machinery for the remaining locations. Drum Tobacco is also produced outside the Netherlands in several factories of the Imperial Tobacco group.

United Kingdom

Before Douwe Egberts introduced Drum in the UK there was an active gray market and Drum had a large market-share: as the tobacco prices were once much higher in the UK than on the European mainland, there were many people who traveled to (mainly) Belgium or France by ferry to import alcohol and tobacco. Although this is still going on, the price differences from 10 years ago have decreased. However, rolling tobacco is still around a third of the price in Belgium as it is in the UK, and smuggling continues. When Douwe Egberts was ready to introduce Drum they faced some legal problems, forcing them to change the brand name to Duma, and was struggling to get a foothold on the UK duty-paid market

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, Drum is the #2 selling brand of shag-tobacco, just below Van Nelle, which is also a brand of Imperial Tobacco. Smoking shag tobacco used to be more popular in the Netherlands than smoking ready-made cigarettes. In 1989, the 'market share' of shag-tobacco was 53%, but decreased to 42% in 2010.VNK (Combined Dutch (shag)tobacco producers
Overview newsarticles
(Dutch), visited 1 July 2012 The main reason for the popularity is the price. A typical cigarette contains less than 1 gram of tobacco. A pouch of 40-42.5 grams is about the same price as a box of 19-20 cigarettes, so the cost of a self-rolled cigarette is half the price of a ready-made cigarette. Many people also put much less tobacco in a self-rolled cigarette. The taxes on tobacco, however, are mainly based on the weight of tobacco, so the margins for the producer are lower on shag than on ready-made cigarettes.VNK Websit

visited 1 July 2012 Even in countries where the price of shag tobacco is much higher, people may smoke shag to save money by putting less tobacco in each cigarette.

European Blends

As the original terms "half-zwaar" (medium strong) and "mild" can't be used anymore due to European rules the different blends are now referenced by their color. Not all blends are available in each country.

References

{{Imperial Tobacco Tobacco brands Imperial Brands brands