January 27, 2014 (Miami, Florida)-–On Friday, January 17th, Drew Estate Tobacco Company held a ribbon cutting ceremony at their new leaf processing facility, dubbed “DE2”. Built across the street from their La Gran Fabrica in Estelí, Nicaragua, the new facility is one of the largest, most state-of-the-art leaf processing operations in the world, specializing in dark air-cured tobaccos. The opening of “DE2” is a massive step deeper into vertical integration for the sixteen-year-old company, who currently resides as the third largest premium cigar company in the United States by sales. Drew Estate has a daily production of approximately 95,000 long filler cigars, made entirely by hand, using natural leaf and absolutely no machines or homogenized tobaccos. “DE2” provides Drew Estate with the ability to drastically increase their scale for pilone curing and bail storage, as well as provide all of the necessary professional support services in leaf sorting, classification and analysis. Ultimately, “DE2” will make the enormous Nicaraguan operation more efficient and more profitable, but not without certain sacrifice, as the “all in cost” was over $4,000,000 USD. When reached for comment, Drew Estate President, Michael Cellucci shared that “the cost was significant for a privately held company, but the ...
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