The Consumer Products group includes four subsidiaries: Premier Manufacturing, Inc. (Chesterfield, MO), King Maker Marketing, Inc. (Raleigh, NC), Big South Distribution, LLC (Bristol, VA and Suwanee, GA), and Franchise Wholesale Co., LLC (Omaha, NE).
The Consumer Products group, more specifically Premier Manufacturing, has an experienced and knowledgeable sales organization that covers the entire U.S. The team educates and trains distributors and retailers on how each brand and product fits well into existing tobacco programs in various retail environments. It has an excellent customer service department dedicated to its clients and has a senior leadership team whose vast network of contacts has allowed the Consumer Products group to increase its sales by double digits consecutively for the last 5 years.
USTC produces and markets cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and roll-your-own tobacco for the adult consumer in the U.S. under the brand names of 1839, 1st Class, Ace, Shield, Traffic, Ultra Buy and Wildhorse. These brands are focused on the value-oriented customer who wants a quality product with exceptional flavor at an extremely competitive price.
The Cooperative members provide us the highest quality flue-cured tobacco available, which is a primary component to any quality cigarette. We use a higher percentage of U.S. grown flue-cured tobacco in all of our products than any of our competitors regardless of brand classification – super-premium, premium, private label/sub-generic or fourth tier.
Our premium product line also includes Belmore cigars, for which Premier Manufacturing is the exclusive U.S. distributor. These cigars are hand‑rolled in the Dominican Republic and offered in two varieties—Connecticut and Maduro—each available in seven classic styles such as Churchill, Corona, Robusto, and Matador.
Key Points
- All of our cigarette brands are American owned and American grown – We proudly state “A Product of US Farmers®”
- We provide a wide assortment of brands, styles and price points to fit into a retailer’s lineup of tobacco products
The Consumer Products group has won several awards recently for its packaging designs from key industry publications such as Convenience Store News and Convenience Store Decisions. In 2017, we won the Best New Product Award – Tobacco/Cigarettes from Convenience Store News for the updated look for one of our brands. A similar award came from Convenience Store Decisions in 2019 for the product launch of Manitou and its bold packaging designs.
All of our cigarette brands rely on our growers’ flue-cured tobacco as the main ingredient in the product lines.