LAS VEGAS: TAAT™ Global Alternatives Inc provides updates relating to its new facilities in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a press release dated April 30, 2021, TAAT™ announced that it had finalized a lease agreement for new facilities to expand the Company’s manufacturing and warehousing capacities.
Combined with the Company’s existing facility at 4730 West Post Road (8,000 square feet / 743 square metres), the new facilities will considerably increase the Company’s total operating space and can allow for the creation of new internal departments for purposes such as digital content production and event management.
To preserve the Company’s inspection workflows and laboratory setups, the TAAT™ quality assurance department will remain at the West Post Road office.
With new domestic launches of TAAT™ in motion and fulfillment underway for the Company’s first international order to a distributor in the United Kingdom, this facility expansion is a proactive effort to ensure the Company has sufficient capacity to meet foreseeable demand. In just nine months on the market, TAAT™ has been placed in over 300 U.S. retail stores, and cartons of TAAT™ have been shipped to smokers aged 21+ in a total of 37 states through e-commerce sales. Although its existing facility can produce enough base material for approximately 680,000 ten-pack cartons of TAAT™ per year, the Company believes it to be prudent to increase this manufacturing bandwidth as product launches are occurring in new markets.
Since the initial announcement of this expansion, milestones and material events in preparation for beginning operations in the new facilities include the following:
All Processing Equipment Successfully Moved into New Manufacturing Facility
As of mid-July 2021, all machinery for processing Beyond Tobacco™ (e.g., mixers, shredders, conveyor belts) has been moved into the new manufacturing facility. In the coming weeks, additional machinery (including existing “finishing” equipment as well as new machines arriving from overseas vendors) will also be moved according to a timeline in which the new manufacturing facility will start operating in August 2021.
Upgraded Storage Space for Beyond Tobacco™ Base Material
In the Company’s new warehouse facility, it will be possible to store approximately 400,000 lb / 181,400 kg of the Beyond Tobacco™ base material (compared to approximately 150,000 lb / 68,000 kg at the current facility) after it is finished and awaiting shipment to a contract cigarette manufacturing partner. In addition to standard climate controls, this storage space also has humidity control functionality which can be used to keep the base material fresh, thereby extending its shelf life.
Fulfillment Station More than Triples in Size
To efficiently facilitate the fulfillment of direct-to-consumer e-commerce orders as well as wholesale purchase orders of finished TAAT™ products, the fulfillment station at the Company’s new warehouse will be over 200% larger than its current size in the West Post Road facility. The new fulfillment station will also have four loading doors at “dock height”, which can reduce pickup and drop-off times for logistics providers. The Company is also evaluating technologies and solutions which could further optimize in-house order fulfillment with this additional space.
TAAT™ Chief Executive Officer Setti Coscarella commented, “Expanding and upgrading the Company’s operating facilities after barely three calendar quarters of selling TAAT™ at retail is an excellent indicator of our progress in my opinion. At this time last year, I was still at Philip Morris International and TAAT™ was still offering ‘test’ iterations of the product to smokers aged 21+ in Nevada and California. Now that we have tobacco wholesalers in multiple markets distributing TAAT™ to more than 300 retail stores in addition to an e-commerce pipeline with clientele in 37 U.S. states, I believe it goes without saying that we could not continue operating out of the same facility if we’re looking to continue scaling our business. Everything is looking great so far, and we are excited to be making this expansion official in August, giving us the room we need to grow as an emerging player in the tobacco industry.”
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