SEKE S.A. and U.S. Tobacco Cooperative Inc. (USTC) have jointly signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” (“MOU”), with the purpose of strengthening our relationship and collaboration in the global tobacco industry.
With the “MOU,” both cooperative companies have jointly formed a consortium of cooperatives that will better serve our tobacco and cigarette manufacturing customers worldwide. This partnership seeks to provide economies of scale, to further expand our current business in the international tobacco market and to offer our existing customers the ability to work with a single point of contact for all types of tobacco and services.
SEKE is based in Xanthi, Greece, with its own processing facilities in Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania. The company sources all the varieties of oriental, flue-cured and burley tobaccos in the Balkan countries. SEKE is the largest tobacco company in Greece as well as one of the largest in the Balkans.
USTC is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, with our own processing and manufacturing facilities. USTC sources U.S. flue-cured tobacco solely from our 500+ member growers in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. In addition, we can also supply burley from the United States.
Both USTC and SEKE are suppliers to international blue-chip companies and state monopolies, as well as other tobacco customers and tobacco products manufacturers worldwide.
The products this new collaboration can supply to the international market include:
- U.S. Flue-Cured (all FCV growing regions) strips and byproducts
- All the varieties of Greek, N. Macedonian, Bulgaria and Albanian Oriental tobacco
- Greek and European FCV and burley strips, stems and scrap
- European FCV for shisha (strips, loose leaf, butted)
- Toasted burley in SEKE premises
- U.S. burley strips and byproducts
- Cut rag
- Cut rolled expanded stem
- Warehousing
- Consulting services