Haypp Group, an online nicotine retailer, has launched a new campaign calling for safer trading laws in the UK. With the UK government recently announcing bans on disposable vapes, and other potential new restrictions, the retailer wants to raise awareness of a similar issue amongst nicotine pouch sellers.
As such, the Swedish-based business is calling amongst its retailing peers to take a shared responsibility for new standards to be implemented in the UK to ensure that the sale of nicotine pouches is safe for all consumers. Haypp has therefore created a new campaign with a clear list of necessary requirements that every retailer should enforce to lead to a more sustainable industry for all. This includes:
Nicotine levels
Haypp Group believes that all of the products on the market in the UK should have a maximum nicotine level of 20 mg per pouch in order to be completely safe. Higher levels of nicotine are simply not necessary.
PH levels
Haypp Group also wants all of the products on the market to have a maximum pH-level of 9.1 and a minimum pH-level of 5.6. Anything that does not meet this requirement should not be sold.
Tested products
In order to make sure all products are completely safe, Haypp Group wants all of the products on the market in the UK to be tested by the standards of Nicoleaks.com. This includes the nicotine and pH level listed above. Nicoleaks also complete tests on every ingredient that is in a nicotine pouch. All tests are performed by the accredited and independent laboratory Eurofins in Sweden.
Child-resistant packaging
Haypp Group wants to enforce a standard that all nicotine pouch-cans are to be child proof, with child-resistant packaging, in the form of a safety lid. This is to reduce the potential risk of children opening the cans and ingesting the contents.
Safer descriptions
Haypp Group does not want the description of products to be appealing to anyone who is underage. This includes only using clear and exact descriptions of the flavours, rather than added advertising to sound appealing. For example, ‘strawberry’ would be acceptable, rather than ‘strawberry skittles milkshake’ which would not be acceptable.
Sales behind the counter
Haypp Group wants to ensure that only those consumers who are actively searching for nicotine pouches have access to them. Products such as nicotine pouches should not be on display and instead hidden behind sales counters. This also applies to any online retailers too.
Markus Lindblad, from Haypp Group, said: “At Haypp, we feel passionately about enforcing these marketing and product standards. We propose that the Government create a new licensing scheme, in which retailers must follow the aforementioned rules in order to sell nicotine products. As one of the leaders in the industry, we are deeply concerned that blanket bans will lead to a, much more damaging, black market.
“As a responsible retailer, we want to ensure that we are doing everything we can to support the Government proposals and restrict the promotion of nicotine products. While there is a huge focus currently on vapes, nicotine pouch retailers should also consider the same impact and start to make changes sooner rather than later. There is an urgency now to make changes to create a sustainable industry.”
