White Ox 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
rolling tobacco
Shag, also known as rolling tobacco or loose tobacco is fine-cut tobacco, used to make Roll-your-own cigarette, self-made cigarettes by hand rolling the tobacco into rolling paper or injecting it into Cigarette_filter, filter tubes. It got its name ...
available worldwide. In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
it is widely available to purchase from licensed tobacco retailers and is imported by
Imperial Tobacco Australia LTD.
History
Originally it was produced by
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 ...
in the Netherlands. In 1998 the "White Ox" brand was acquired by Imperial Tobacco when Douwe Egbert sold off its hand-rolling tobacco business. White Ox tobacco is described on the packaging as a "Superior Dark Blend" of tobaccos. In the Australian market it was sold in 30 gram and 50 gram variant pouches. In March 2014 the 30 gram pouch was discontinued from sale and a 25 gram pouch introduced. Originally the 25 gram pouch was produced in New Zealand, but from late 2017 both the 50 and 25 gram pouches are now produced in The Netherlands.
An Australian government quantitative survey of
RYO smokers to "Determine Impact of Plain Packaging" found that "White Ox" tobacco was perceived by this cohort as being "extremely low appeal as a product", that was associated with "prison populations and homeless people"
Its name is shared with the name of the original store "De Witte Os" (English translation, 'The White Ox'), in
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 Netherlands opened in 1753 by Egbert Douwes and his wife Akke Thysses, founders of the Douwe Egberts company.
Prior to the prison smoking ban in August 2015, White Ox tobacco was the standard issue tobacco in the state of N.S.W. Australia prisons, where it was colloquially known as "Boob Shit" or "Boob Weed."
In popular culture
At the conclusion of the 1992 Vogel award-winning novel PRAISE, by Andrew McGahan, the novel's protagonist uses his last $8 to purchase a pouch of White Ox tobacco.
It was also referenced in the Australian YouTube series
The Big Lez Show
''The Big Lez Show'' is an Australian comedy web series created by Jarrad Wright, Tom Hollis and Izak Whear. The show originally premiered on YouTube on 16 July 2012 and concluded on 26 January 2019. The show follows Big Lez, a humanoid alien li ...
, with character Mike Nolan saying that smoking a
Marlboro
Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Marl ...
Red is akin to "…smoking a White Ox no filter, fuck that for a joke
THE BIG LEZ SHOW , S03 EP02
on Youtube", referring to the “traditional” Australian way of smoking White Ox as a rolled cigarette without a filter (a part of the brand's inseparable association with prison life).
References
{{Imperial Tobacco
Tobacco brands
Imperial Brands brands